Common forms of fraud in Vietnamese cyberspace

With the rapid development of the digital economy, the Internet has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. According to VNETWORK statistics, in January 2023, Vietnam had a total of 77.93 million Internet users, reaching an Internet usage rate of 79.1% of the total population. According to Kepios analysis, the number of Internet users in Vietnam increased by 5.3 million (+7.3%) compared to 2022. However, about 20.9% of Vietnam's population, or 20.60 million people, were still not using the Internet at the beginning of 2023.

Many forms of fraud through strange phone calls. Illustration: Internet

As of January 2023, Vietnam had approximately 70 million social media users. According to GWI and data.ai, the popularity of social media in Vietnam continues to increase with no signs of slowing down. However, not every social media user account corresponds to a single individual. At the beginning of 2023, the number of social media users in Vietnam reached 71.0% of the total population, but according to data from advertising planning tools of leading social media platforms, there were only 64.40 million users aged 18 and over.

However, this rate is still very high, reaching 89.0% of the total population aged 18 and over. In other words, 89.8% of all Internet users in Vietnam used at least one social media platform in January 2023. Among social media users in Vietnam, the proportion of women is higher than men, with 50.6% being women and 49.4% being men.

"Trap" of easy jobs with high salaries online has deceived many people. Illustration photo: Internet

According to data from GSMA Intelligence, Vietnam had 161.6 million mobile connections at the beginning of 2023. This means that many people use more than one mobile connection, for example one for personal use and another for work. It is therefore not surprising that the number of mobile connections significantly exceeds the total population. This is equivalent to 164.0% of the total population in January 2023, according to GSMA Intelligence. The number of mobile connections in Vietnam also increased by 4.7 million (+3.0%) from 2022 to 2023.

In the current period of promoting and accelerating digital transformation, bad guys have taken advantage of the IT boom and the conveniences that information technology brings to carry out many online scams and appropriate valuable assets.

In 2022, the Vietnam Information Security Warning Portal at canhbao.khonggianmang.vn recorded nearly 13,000 cases of online fraud, with two main types of fraud including fraud to steal personal information and financial fraud. Fraud to steal personal information is also a stepping stone to continue to plan a scenario to carry out financial fraud.

To carry out online scams, scammers apply many different methods to create trust, but can be divided into 3 main scam groups, which are brand counterfeiting accounting for 72.6%, online account hijacking accounting for 11.4% and the remaining 16% are other forms such as online jobs, love scams, loan apps...

According to the comments of the Department of Information Security - Ministry of Information and Communications, the ultimate goal of the subjects is to defraud and appropriate property; all attack the gullible mentality, lack of access to information, lack of jobs or low income, and the greed hidden deep in each person.

Notably, from the actual implementation of activities to monitor and ensure the safety of Vietnam's cyberspace, with the 3 main fraud groups mentioned above, experts from the Department of Information Security also pointed out the forms of fraud that frequently occur in Vietnam's cyberspace in 2022 so that users can recognize and avoid them.

That is:

Group 1 - Brand counterfeiting, including:

- Impersonating the brands of agencies and organizations, such as: State agencies, banks, financial companies, securities companies... to send fraudulent SMS messages to victims.

- Impersonate official websites/blogs to create credibility to deceive victims and collect people's personal information.

Group 2 - Account hijacking, including:

- Taking over social network accounts, such as: Zalo, Facebook, Tiktok... to send fraudulent messages to friends and relatives to take over accounts, steal information, appropriate property, defame, blackmail...

- Using applications, black credit advertisements on websites, sending via spam emails, SMS messages, social networks Facebook, Telegram, Zalo... to lure users into becoming debtors while the victims themselves do not know.

Group 3 - Combination forms, including:

- Using domestic and foreign phone numbers, impersonating police agencies, telecommunications networks, etc. to call victims to report violations of the law and request money transfers.

- Using a strange phone number to call the victim, when the victim answers the phone, money will be deducted from the account without them knowing.

- Impersonating major e-commerce sites in Vietnam and abroad to trick victims into becoming collaborators. To lure victims, the subject runs fraudulent ads on Facebook or sends spam advertising messages via SMS.

- Spreading fake news that plays on curiosity, compassion and trust. To attract views, likes and then defraud and appropriate property through charity, calling for donations...

- Fraudulent appropriation of property through online sales promotion on Facebook (selling fake goods, poor quality goods, fake airline tickets, fake promotions, virtual goods or fake sales of non-existent products).

- Impersonate personal pages and user accounts on Facebook, Telegram, Zalo to create credibility and trick victims into using services or investing.

- Taking advantage of trust and pity to scam through platforms such as Facebook, Zalo, Tinder, Telegram.

- Fraudulently installs malware through malicious links and malicious software. Subjects create tools, links, and malicious software to steal assets, social network account information, and banking information.

- Announcement of prizes, gifts, and promotions to trick victims into stealing account information and assets through fake websites.

- Tricks to upgrade to 4G or 5G sim to trick victims into giving up their phone numbers to steal account information and assets.

- Impersonating emails of banks, agencies, and reputable organizations to intimidate and defraud victims of money.

- Setting up crypto investment floors, multi-level investment, binary investment, Forex investment... to defraud and appropriate assets.

To protect people from fraud on social networks and telecommunications networks, authorities, service providers, and cybersecurity businesses have deployed many technical measures, propaganda activities, and raised awareness among customers and people.

The representative of the Information Security Department also said that in recent times, in order to protect people and the community from online fraud, authorities, service providers, and cyber security and safety enterprises have deployed many technical measures, in conjunction with press agencies to carry out a series of propaganda activities, raising awareness for customers and people, some measures have initially brought certain results. However, the deployed solutions have not been synchronized and unified among ministries, branches, and localities.

Therefore, the Information Security Department believes that to solve online fraud, similar to real-life fraud, there needs to be coordinated and synchronous participation of functional agencies from central to local levels, in which the core is the police force tasked with preventing high-tech crimes. It is recommended that people be vigilant, not participate in the above activities, and when detected, immediately report to the nearest police agency for resolution./.