Scams and cybercrime cases in Singapore continue their upward trajectory, increasing by 49.6% last year, even as the country rolls out several industry-wide measures to stem such incidents.
The number of scam and cybercrime cases hit 50,376 in 2023, up from 33,669 cases the previous year, with scams accounting for 92.4% of overall cases.
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Victims reported 1,899 malware-enabled scam cases last year, losing more than SG$34.
Some 55.6% of scam cases involved losses of SG$2,000 or less.
Scammers typically reach out to victims through such platforms, phone calls, and online shopping sites.
Meta's three platforms - Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram - accounted for the bulk of such media, with most scammers leveraging the trio to interact with potential victims.
Among scam cases involving Facebook as the point of contact, 41.5% were e-commerce scams, 15.8% were malware-enabled scams, and 12% were job scams.
Job and e-commerce scams were among the leading types of scams used in 2023, with fake friend call scams as well as phishing and investment scams rounding up the top five.
These accounted for 78.4% of all scam types reported last year, where government official impersonation scams clocked the highest average losses of SG$103,600 per case, followed by investment scams at SG$50,700 per case.
The two scam types typically involved deception and social engineering conducted over a period of time and used a variety of complex scam methods, SPF said.
Phishing scams dropped 16.3% to 5,938 cases last year, with victims losing more than SG$14.
These scam cases involved the use of email, calls, and advertisements by scammers who posed as government officials, financial institutions, or businesses, swindling victims into revealing sensitive information including passwords and banking credentials after clicking malicious links or via phone calls.
Scammers then would use the personal data to carry out unauthorized transactions with the victims' bank accounts or credit cards.
Youths and adults aged below 50 accounted for 73% of overall scam victims, with those aged between 30 and 49 making up the majority at 43.1%. Of this group, 24.6% were victims of e-commerce scams, while 22.3% were involved in job scams and 14.3% in phishing scams.
Victims aged 30 to 49 accounted for 49.3% of e-commerce scam cases, with Facebook, Carousell, Telegram among the most common platforms used to run such scams.
The center also works with local telcos and e-commerce platforms on anti-scam measures, terminating more than 9,200 mobile lines and 29,200 WhatsApp lines last year that were suspected of being used in scams.
SPF also has deployed analytic tools to identify and block scam websites and worked with local ISPs to block more than 25,000 scam websites last year.
More than 300 million scam calls made from international numbers were blocked by the telcos between January and September last year, according to industry regulator Infocomm Media Development Authority.
This measure helped cut the number of SMS scam cases by 70% in three months after it was rolled out, IMDA said.
This Cyber News was published on www.zdnet.com. Publication date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:13:07 +0000