SINGAPORE - Members of the public have been warned not to give away any credit card information and personal details to fraudsters posing as charity platform Giving.sg after a spate of phishing e-mails were flagged.
In a Facebook post on Monday evening (July 25), the charity, which is run by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), said the Giving.sg database has not been compromised and that it is working on its security processes.
The authorities have also been alerted and investigations are under way, said NVPC, which promotes charity work between non-profit organisations, companies and public sector agencies.
Some 625 charities use the Giving.sg platform to raise funds and it is the leading national digital giving service.
NVPC urged the public not to key in personal details on unverified web pages and to look out for bogus sites with suspicious URLs and messages with poor spelling - a telltale sign that a source is fake.
The scam alert comes after Giving.sg received a record $95.5 million last year in donations - the largest sum collected since it was started by NVPC in 2010.
The Straits Times has contacted the centre and the police for further details.
Those who have received a suspicious e-mail can contact hello@giving.sg
Cyber security expert Aloysius Cheang said the spate of phishing e-mails could make potential donors more cautious when making online donations.
Mr Cheang, who is a board member of cyber security professional association (ISC)2, urged the charity to check the demographic of their donors who are most vulnerable to getting duped – such as seniors – to inform them of the phishing scam.
“This is regardless of the many ways that the charity is assuring the public that whichever site or link is safe or secure; in the short run, people will err on the side of being cautious... Once people lose trust, that is it,” he said.
Fraudsters had taken aim at donors and charities earlier in the year, such as using phishing e-mails to dupe donors into sending money to help those affected by the Ukraine war.
