Another victim lost 1 billion dong after the phone call: The scenario of manipulation of the victim is extremely sophisticated, related to a fake application

Losing billions after a call to “lock SIM”

On the morning of March 29, Mr. Chu Van S, a teacher at an elementary school in Cam Xuyen district, Ha Tinh province, said that he had filed a report to the authorities about being scammed by bad guys with nearly 1 billion VND after a phone call.

According to Mr. S, on the morning of March 27, he received a phone call from a strange woman, claiming to be a telecommunications switchboard, informing that his subscriber number would be locked for 2 hours for the authorities to handle. Mr. S was instructed to press 1 for more details on why.

After a phone call from a stranger announcing “your subscription will be locked” and following the instructions, Mr. S was scammed to lose nearly 1 million dong (Artwork: Getty)

When he followed the instructions, he was contacted by a man and informed that the phone number had spread a huge amount of harassing information. Next, he was connected to a person claiming to be “Da Nang City Police”, asking him to go directly to Da Nang to work. But considering the remote situation, Mr. S is allowed to work indirectly, but must ensure confidentiality.

According to the person who introduced himself, the captain of the investigation team, Mr. S was involved in a scam to appropriate hundreds of billions of dong, and instructed this teacher to download a software Portal of the Ministry of Public Security ( fake). When he opened it, Mr. S was shocked when he saw that it contained information about the individual who opened a money-laundering account in Da Nang, along with the decision to take him into custody, with a 90-day detention period to serve the investigation.

When he saw that Mr. S completely trusted him, the person claiming to be a police officer instructed Mr. S. to get his personal papers, account opening papers, etc. to help him find a way to whitewash. This person asked Mr. S to delete some applications installed on the phone such as Vietcombank, Messenger to reduce the weight of the phone and make it easier to talk.

Following the temptation, if he raised a lot of money in his account to ensure his financial ability, he would soon be vindicated, Mr. S borrowed an amount of VND 965 million from his brothers, friends and relatives to transfer to your account.

The subjects continued to instruct Mr. S to bring the car as a pledge, but was discovered and prevented by his eldest daughter in time. At this time, Mr. S checked his bank account, the amount of nearly 1 billion dong everyone had just transferred was gone.

Build sophisticated scripts to manipulate victims, trick victims into downloading fake software

Before Mr. S, many cases of losing billions after listening to strange phone calls claiming to be police officers, bank employees or phone messages, Facebook contained fake links, recruited employees, as well as ever recorded.

At the beginning of August, 2022, Ms. NTHT (SN 1983, residing in Thanh Khe Tay ward, Thanh Khe district, Da Nang) received a call from 02471098935 with the content that she was involved in a traffic accident at the intersection. Dien Bien Phu – Nguyen Tri Phuong road.

The common point of these cases is that the subjects used sophisticated tricks to catch the victims off guard (Image: Shutterstock)

When Ms. T. replied that she did not know anything about the case, she was informed that her personal information had been exposed, so she would be transferred to the Da Nang City Police for assistance.

After transferring the phone, a person claiming to be a police officer of Da Nang City informed that Ms. T. was involved in the case of illegal drug trafficking and instructed her to download the “security application” software to declare.

Ms. T. followed the instructions and filled in her personal and bank account information on the downloaded software. After only 2 hours, Ms. T.’s bank account was deducted 7 times with an amount of more than 1 billion VND.

The common point of these cases is that the subjects used sophisticated tricks to catch the victims off guard. In particular, the subjects are those who have the ability to manipulate psychology, who can cause harm – even those with high education and position in society – but still fall into traps and then have their money taken away. big.

In addition, spyware impersonating a phone application named “Ministry of Public Security” was also used by the subjects.

Application impersonating software by the Ministry of Public Security (Photo: Ministry of Public Security)

Accordingly, this spyware is disguised by objects, pretending to be a phone application named “Ministry of Public Security”, “Ministry of Public Security’s web portal”, etc. If users install the application, This on the phone will take control of the entire phone.

The trick used by the subjects is to use VOIP technology to create virtual phone numbers, fake public phone numbers of law enforcement agencies (only different at the beginning of numbers like +0096, +884), to call the victim, informing them that they are being investigated because they are involved in a case or special case, if they do not cooperate, they will be arrested and prosecuted.

At the same time, ask the victim to declare assets, the amount of cash available and the amount deposited in bank accounts. They forged arrest warrants, prosecutions, summons from the police to threaten, then ask the victim to change the phone they are using to an Android phone.

Then, using the excuse “to secure account information and protect victims from fraudsters”, the subjects asked victims to download and install an application to impersonate software provided by the Ministry of Public Security. whose image is displayed as a police officer with the name “Ministry of Public Security”.

After the victim installs the application named “Ministry of Public Security”, according to the instructions of the subjects, the victim will have to fill in additional fields of information displayed on this fake application such as: username, password, bank account, full name, identity card number (citizen identification)… These information will be transferred to the server managed by the subjects.

Messages containing OTP codes, confirmation phone calls of bank employees are also directly transferred by spyware to the subjects. This is the cause of the cardholder’s withdrawal without the victim’s recognition.