SINGAPORE - Voters, election officials and even presidential candidates have been targeted in a spate of scams since campaigning kicked off for the presidential election.
Responding to queries, the Elections Department (ELD) cautioned the public to be wary of webpages containing clickable links that purport to be from ELD.
This is after images circulated online of what appears to be the ELD website, claiming that those ineligible to vote in this election can “click a link below” to have their names restored to the registers of electors.
About 200 Singaporeans had been left off the voter rolls despite having voted in the 2020 General Election, likely because their identity cards had not been properly scanned during electronic registration at polling stations, ELD said on Thursday.
“Voters should ascertain their voting status via official sources only, such as through ELD’s Voter Services page at ELD’s official website or via the Singpass app,” it told The Straits Times. “Those who are unable to do so electronically can call ELD’s hotline at 1800-CALL-ELD (1800-2255-353).”
Separately, police are investigating reports of a phishing scam using a doctored version of presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian’s donation page.
The genuine page had been set up by Mr Tan’s team to support his campaign, and carried his personal PayNow phone number. The fake page was modified to instead carry a PayNow contact belonging to one “Tan Kok Liang” and a QR code soliciting donations.
The police have since frozen the bank account linked to the fake page and suspended the GrabPay wallet found on the donation page, the authorities said in reply to queries on Thursday. It is not known if there have been any victims.
On Friday, Mr Tan, 75, told the media during a walkabout at Geylang Serai Market and Food Centre that at least 20 people have alerted him to scams targeting his supporters.
ST has also learnt from three different polling officers that they have been briefed by senior election officials to be careful of scammers impersonating ELD officials to solicit their bank details.
ELD told ST that it will not ask for any bank details or personal details via SMS or unsolicited phone calls.
Cyber-security experts are also warning people to be alert about non-official social media accounts claiming to represent the presidential candidates.
Cyber-security firm Group-IB said it has detected spoof social media accounts of two of the presidential candidates, while monitoring scams linked to the elections.
Mr Afiq Sasman, the regional head of Group-IB’s Computer Emergency Response Team, said these accounts often use the same display photos of the people they are impersonating and contain links to official resources.
Screenshots of the non-official Facebook profiles show that the accounts have only a handful of followers, unlike the thousands of users that follow the candidates’ real accounts.
Mr Sasman said: “Such profiles can remain dormant, but it’s not uncommon for scammers to use such profiles to run fraudulent ad campaigns that redirect users to rogue websites.”
He added that fraudsters will be on the hunt for Singpass credentials, and urged members of the public never to click on prompts to install any apps on instant messengers, which could carry viruses.
“Always head to the official app store to download the legitimate app,” he said. “If a message has been forwarded multiple times, it is a potential red flag.”
On Nomination Day on Tuesday, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) issued an advisory alerting voters to watch out for scams and cyber attacks that pose as election-related materials.
CSA noted that the shifting of traditional election campaigning to the digital space meant bad actors now have more opportunities to carry out attacks against unsuspecting victims.
It urged the public to be mindful of phishing attempts and malware that could lead to unauthorised access and data breaches.
