According to Kaspersky survey, more than half of users (53%) of people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) faced banking fraud at least once in the first half of 2020. In most of the cases (more than 85%) the banking fraud occurred via the phone, while the calls were received mainly during business hours from Monday to Thursday, from 11am to 6pm.
More than half (68%) of people in the United Arab Emirates realised immediately that scammers were trying to contact them and (32%) grasped that they were being scammed only when they opened the link. Scammers targeted most of these people (87%) through their personal emails.
Fraudsters are seriously preparing for such calls and are actively using social engineering methods.
According to the Kaspersky findings, in 36% of cases, they mentioned the correct name and surname of the person whom they called and in 25% cases they even knew bank card credentials. The most common myths were the need to confirm the data (70%), information about the banking card blocking (77%) and the loan offer (72%). In almost a third of the cases (38%), the criminals were trying to get a code from SMS or card data and in every third case (32%) they tried to convince a person to transfer money to an allegedly secure account.
“Financial scams continues to grow, in particular we’ve seen a 43% increase in financial malware in the first half of 2020 in the United Arab Emirates. But at the same time, unfortunately, many people still do not know how to recognise criminals and lose money as a result of simple scam schemes. In case of a phone scam it’s better to end the conversation and call the bank’s official number should there be any suspicion,” said Amin Hasbini, Head, Middle East Research Centre, Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky shares a reminder of the basic security tips that will help you to stay safe from scammers:
- Be wary of any calls from people who claim to be bank employees
- Do not follow dubious links from SMS or messages received in messengers
- Never tell anyone CVV or codes from SMS or push notifications
- In case of any suspicion, immediately hang up and call the bank yourself at the number indicated on the back of the card
- Get cybersecurity on your phone – the best way to protect your online privacy and data on your mobile is to protect it. It is recommend to install Kaspersky Security Cloud.
