A minimum of 219 prospects of DBS Financial institution have reportedly been duped by subtle phishing scams within the first two weeks of 2024, leading to a collective lack of roughly S$446,000 (US$335,000), Channel Information Asia realized from a joint assertion by the Singapore Police Pressure and DBS on Sunday (14 Jan).
The scams, which have seen a big rise since December final yr, primarily contain SMS phishing, the place scammers masquerade as financial institution officers or impersonate banking entities like DBS or POSB.
Victims of those scams obtain unsolicited textual content messages, which can originate from quick codes, overseas, or native numbers. These messages falsely alert them about unauthorised entry to their accounts and immediate them to click on on hyperlinks to confirm their identities and supposedly halt fraudulent transactions.
Nevertheless, these hyperlinks result in counterfeit DBS web sites the place victims are tricked into divulging their web banking credentials and One-Time Passwords (OTPs). Scammers then exploit this info for unauthorised withdrawals from the victims’ accounts.
In response to inquiries from Channel Information Asia, a spokesperson for DBS elaborated on the financial institution’s response, stating that they’re contemplating goodwill payouts for affected prospects on a person foundation.
Simply final yr, the Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched a proposal for a Shared Accountability Framework (SRF) which centered on an outlined scope of phishing scams.
The regulator outlined that monetary establishments and telcos could also be anticipated to bear the complete lack of these scams, in the event that they fail to discharge their respective prescribed duties to mitigate phishing scams.
Moreover, DBS is partnering with counseling facilities to supply emotional help to victims. The spokesperson highlighted the financial institution’s in depth anti-scam consciousness initiatives geared toward educating the general public about such fraudulent schemes.
Authorities emphasise that official banks, together with DBS, have ceased the follow of sending clickable hyperlinks by way of SMS or e mail to retail prospects since early 2022.
This transformation is a part of a broader technique to fight phishing scams, which additionally contains different protecting measures like decreasing the default restrict for transaction notifications and ramping up rip-off schooling alerts.
The police and DBS collectively advocate the set up of the ScamShield App to safeguard towards rip-off calls and SMSes, alongside enabling two-factor authentication for financial institution accounts and setting transaction limits.
In addition they remind the general public that financial institution workers won’t ever request web banking particulars or OTPs. Prospects who suspect rip-off actions are urged to contact the DBS fraud hotline or use the financial institution’s Security Swap function to dam entry to their funds quickly.
The financial institution can be collaborating with varied authorities companies such because the Infocomm Media Improvement Authority and the Cyber Safety Company of Singapore to supply academic content material on anti-scam measures.
In a broader transfer, the police alongside with DBS, UOB, OCBC, and Commonplace Chartered, had performed a collaborative operation over three months till 31 December 2023 to ship out greater than 48,000 SMSes to over 15,000 rip-off victims who’re prospects of the banks.
By leveraging Robotic Course of Automation (RPA) expertise, the police had managed to efficiently disrupt over 5,300 ongoing scams and prevented potential monetary losses of greater than S$69.43 million.
Featured picture credit score: Edited from Freepik
