Whatsapp scam: attackers appear to be a family member struggling to ask for money

Cybersecurity researchers warn of a scam circulating on WhatsApp where cybercriminals contact different people, posing as relatives in distress. In particular, it has been seen that scammers pretend to be victims' children or nephews to request urgent money from them.

This modus operandi is reminiscent of virtual kidnappings in which, in the middle of the night, the criminal calls a person in the middle of the night and tells him that he has a family member kidnapped. Then the alleged family member (who is another criminal) is put on his cell phone, screaming and crying to make him believe that it is a real kidnapping. Faced with the confusion generated, the person falls into the trap and ends up delivering the loot where indicated.

In this case, there is no call but a message by the messaging service and instead of using the mobile phone of the kidnapping, a problematic situation is invented that the alleged son of the victim must resolve urgently and requires a disbursement of money. As you can see, the common point in this type of deception is the urgency and appeal to the affective side of the victim with the claim or necessity of an alleged family member.

The scammer, who poses as the son in distress, tells the victim that he cannot reach his regular phone because they have problems with their device and cannot receive calls. Faced with this situation, the scammed people agree to make the transfers as requested.

In the context of trouble, deceived people fail to verify whether what they are told is true and they act immediately. Urgency and fear suspend alertness and criminals get away with it.

This is not the first time that this type of situation has arisen. But there has been a significant increase in this type of scam. Recently in Spain they have detected this type of deception in different parts of the country and estimated that cybercriminals have managed to defraud between 2,000 and 26,000 euros.

For this reason, the National Police recommends not losing your cool if you receive such a message to ensure that you are actually talking to a family member before making a transfer.

A little over a month ago, there were also warnings about the increase in these scams in Latin America. Phishing is used with different excuses, but the goal is always the same: to convince the victim to make a deposit of money or enter a fake site to steal your access credentials and thus illegally obtain funds.

The commonalities seen in these types of fraud

1. A message is received from an unknown number that the attacker uses to impersonate someone nearby.

2. Although the number is different, the profile is a copy of the legitimate one, including photograph and name, in addition, they use a familiar nickname to gain trust quickly. In this case, it is made to believe that the number has been changed or in other cases the excuse of having a broken mobile phone, or with difficulties of some kind, as already mentioned above is used

3. You are asked for money to resolve an emergency, pay off a debt or offer the sale of foreign currency. The excuses may vary, the idea is to resort to urgency or to a hook that may be attractive, such as the possibility of acquiring a foreign currency

How to avoid these deceptions

The first step is to try to contact the contact in question to verify if they are obviously in trouble, have any difficulties or changed their number.

It is better to wait a while before acting because it may be a trap. Then, as a general measure, no personal data should be given to anyone over the phone and you should not download content that is sent via links if there is any suspicion.

Make a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office or corresponding authority in each country to avoid or at least limit the circulation of this type of deception.

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