More people here have been targeted by scammers claiming to help them with technical support issues, with the police receiving twice as many reports of such ruses last year amid a Covid-19-fuelled rise in online scams.
This is according to findings from a new study released yesterday by American software giant Microsoft.
The study showed that 62 per cent of people here had an encounter with a tech support scam, up from 58 per cent when a similar study was last done in 2018.
Of the people here who encountered a tech support scam, nearly half - or 49 per cent - ignored it this year, up from 44 per cent in 2018.
In such scams, crooks often pretend to be from reputable companies and lie to victims that their electronic devices are infected by a virus, or have security or network issues that the scammers can fix.
The scammers communicate the lies by making cold phone calls, sending unsolicited e-mails, inserting pop-up online advertisements in websites, and redirecting people to other websites.
They also use tricks to scare victims into thinking there is something wrong with their devices, such as playing loud siren sounds in pop-up messages.
Microsoft had commissioned market research firm YouGov to poll about 1,000 people here aged 18 and above in May on such scams. People in fifteen other countries were also polled, including in the United States, India and Japan.
The survey found that 34 per cent of respondents here received an unsolicited tech support scam call in the 12 months to May, almost double the figure from 2018.
But respondents were also found to be guarded against the scams.
For instance, 91 per cent said it was very or somewhat unlikely that a company would contact them through unsolicited means. This is higher than 2018's 84 per cent.
The Microsoft findings coincide to an extent with police data.
Last year, 506 cases involving tech support scams were reported to the police, more than double the 249 cases in 2019.
The amount cheated from victims last year was about $22.3 million, up 59 per cent from $14 million in 2019. The largest amount cheated in a reported tech support scam last year was $1.1 million.
The police had said in February that there was a significant increase in online scams as Singaporeans carried out more online transactions amid Covid-19.
Microsoft said yesterday that scammers likely took advantage of people's fears during the pandemic, such as concerns over jobs.
Scammers created fake documents leveraging these fears, like updates on jobs, and sent them to victims in e-mails or through links.
Once victims opened such documents, malware hidden in them would also be downloaded and could, among other things, make pop-ups appear to trick victims.
Microsoft added that it is crucial for people to do checks on their devices after encountering a tech support scam.
This is because some scammers install malware on computers that allows them to maintain remote access to people's devices long after victims believe their scam encounter is over.
Consumers can protect themselves such as by downloading software only from official sources.
