Police warn against new phishing scam variant involving fake ScamShield app
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The police reminded the public not to download any suspicious apps as they may contain phishing malware.
PHOTOS: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
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SINGAPORE - A new phishing scam variant has emerged, involving the download of a fake ScamShield app that installs malware on the victims’ mobile devices, the police warned.
In an advisory on Tuesday, the police reminded the public not to download any suspicious apps as they may contain phishing malware which scammers can use to control the victims’ devices.
In this phishing scam variant, members of the public would contact the scammers through the messaging app Whatsapp to buy food items after seeing them advertised on social media platforms like Facebook on their Android mobile devices.
The scammers would then send a link to the victims, and tell them to use it to download an app to make payment for the food items.
Unauthorised transactions would then be made from the victim’s bank accounts or credit cards.
After these unauthorised transactions are made, the scammers would contact the victims and introduce themselves as bank staff, and claim to be following up on the fraudulent transactions.
The police said: “The scammer would then recommend the victim download the (fake) ScamShield App using a URL link fraudulently bearing the ScamShield logo, on the pretext of getting the victim to safeguard himself against scams and to make a report in the ScamShield App.”
The scammers would also inform victims not to download the authentic ScamShield app from the official Google Play Store, and insist that the victims download the fake app from the URL link provided by the scammers, the police added.
According to the National Crime Prevention Council’s website, the ScamShield app helps individuals filter scam messages and calls from numbers used in illegal activities. These numbers will be blocked if ScamShield determines that they have been used for scams.
The police did not release figures on how many people have fallen for this scam variant.
This new variant had just been detected, and the police are reminding the public of the dangers of downloading applications from third-party sites that can lead to malware being installed on the victims’ mobile phones, computers and other devices.
Earlier in May, a woman lost $20,000
Between March and mid-April 2023, at least 113 Android phone users had their banking credentials stolen
In 2022, scam victims in Singapore lost $660.7 million,
There were 31,728 scam cases reported in 2022, up from 23,933 cases in 2021.
People can visit www.scamalert.sg www.police.gov.sg/iwitness
Mobile device users can also learn more about protecting themselves against malware at https://www.csa.gov.sg/alerts-advisories/Advisories/2021/ad-2021-008
