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South Korean Government taking action to minimize Voice Phishing Scams

 

The number of voice phishing or phone scams incidents that had dwindled in South Korea for three continuous years (i.e. 2015 to 2017), has increased more than 43% in the first 10 months of last year (2018) as compared to the first 10 months of 2017. This immediately prompted the Korean government to devise strategies and take up actions on the same.

 

As soon as the higher authorities came to know through data that the voice phishing incidents have increased 43.6% in the time period from January to October of 2018 as compared to the same time period of 2017, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Police Agency, the Financial Services Commission, the Ministry of Justice, along with three more related government bodies unveiled measures on December 18, 2018, to crack down the phone scams or telecommunication fraud.

 

About 38,293 incidents of voice phishing were reported in the year 2017, which resulted in damages of 181.6 billion won in terms of currency. However, the damages in terms of currency have increased 83.9% in the year 2018, which comes out to be 334 billion won.

 

The phone scams using messengers, like Kakao Talk, have been very common. Total of 14.4 billion won in damages have been reported, via messenger phishing, in the time period from January to October of 2018. In the same time period of 2017, the figure came out to be 3.9 billion won in damages. It shows that, in 2018, it has increased up to three times in damages. Messenger phishing is the easiest method to hoax the victims to transfer the money from them without any calling and identification checking. The scammers hack accounts for stealing names along with profile information of the victims, and generally go to steal a very small amount that is less than 3 million won.

 

The government will now demand more strict action from the wireless carriers and financial institutions, so that opening fake bank accounts and fabricating phone numbers becomes more difficult. The government also plans confiscating property of the scammers, in case amount of the damage was to be taken out from their accounts.

 

Moreover, foreign ministry will also be restricting the issue and usage of passports of the voice phishing suspects and scammers. This would also restrict the scammers to have the valid passports. Besides, the foreigners who have committed crimes in South Korea will become the illegal residents and thus would be subjected to international investigation.

 

» SPAMfighter News - 1/7/2019

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