Authorities work with Meta on scam prevention

The Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau shared several cases

related to WhatsApp phishing

and announced a collaboration with Meta to prevent scamming.

With the advancement of technology,

fraudsters have been upgrading their scamming schemes.

Voice, facial data, and other personal details shared on social media

can be used to generate convincing deepfake content.

In recent cases, scammers posed as official WhatsApp security staff

to contact users directly via calls or messages.

After tricking users into entering verification codes,

passwords, scanning QR codes,

scammers log into the victim's account via a separate device.

A victim who had regular business transactions with his father

lost over 10 million dollars after receiving highly realistic

AI-generated voice messages from scammers posing as his father.

In another case, after the victim's account was hijacked,

the scammers discovered he was planning to purchase a new house.

Upon realising he had been in frequent contact with a housing agent

and a lawyer, the scammers created clone accounts of them to scam him.

The victim lost more than 1 million dollars.

Police also arrested suspects linked to a scam syndicate

using local cell towers to send phishing messages.

By downgrading phone networks to 2G,

the scammers are often able to escape detection by the authorities.

Meta's Asia Pacific Director of Public Policy (Product) Philip Chua says

the platform has also been upgrading its security methods

to keep up with scamming trends.

They will start showing warnings to users when they receive a call

or message from a stranger.

The platform will automatically block any links in chat messages mimicking

legitimate official website domains, preventing access to phishing pages.