'Child is in emergency' scam: Where does student information leak from?

In early March, in Ho Chi Minh City, a number of individuals were found to have appropriated people’s property by impersonating teachers or hospital staff. The scammers contacted parents to inform them that their students or family members had an accident and were being treated at the hospital, and asked for a quick transfer of money to pay hospital fees.

Following that, many parents in Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, and Da Nang also received fraudulent calls informing them that their children were in critical condition in the hospital and asking them to transfer money urgently for surgery. These “self-proclaimed teachers” took turns calling parents, urging them that if they did not transfer or pay late, their children’s lives would be in danger.

Since the beginning of March, many parents in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hanoi, and Thai Nguyen have received calls from scammers informing them that their children are in emergency care and asking them to transfer money. (Illustration: Internet)

According to experts' analysis, the subjects used tricks to attack the victims' psychology and emotions, creating a state of insecurity, fear and panic when parents heard that their children were in the emergency room.

In order to manipulate the victim's psychology in a short time, the subjects often present themselves unclearly, using negative language that stimulates emotions such as critical, seriously injured, possibly dying... It is worth mentioning that the subjects also memorize information about the school, the child's class, the name of the homeroom teacher, teachers, and principal, causing many parents to temporarily trust them.

Mr. Vu Ngoc Son - Technical Director of Vietnam National Cyber ​​Security Technology Joint Stock Company - NCS said that there are many ways to leak student information, but there are 4 most common possibilities.

Specifically: Parents and students post personal information online; Training facilities outside of school such as English learning centers, gyms, sports centers... do not ensure information security, are attacked by hackers or employees arbitrarily sell data; Schools do not ensure information security - even posting a full list of student names, codes, parents' contact information... on the school website so anyone can download it, some schools do not ensure information security so hackers can access and steal data; Finally, companies providing electronic contact book and electronic transcript services do not ensure security, are attacked by hackers or employees sell data to outsiders.

Discussing the above issue, in his speech at the launching event of the online contest "Students with information security 2023" on March 17, Mr. To Hong Nam - Deputy Director of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education and Training emphasized the issue of awareness and information protection skills of everyone when participating in the online environment: "Without skills, users' personal information can be leaked a lot. Even when students register for social network accounts, participate in online learning programs... all can lead to information leakage.".

Recalling the incident of 30 million student information being sold on an online forum in July 2022, Mr. To Hong Nam affirmed that this data was not leaked from the database system of the Ministry of Education and Training. Investigation results showed that the information about the students being sold was collected and compiled by the subjects from social networking sites and online systems.

In fact, just by searching on Google Search with the keyword “student list”, the system returned more than 215 million results. Among them, there are many detailed lists of names, genders, dates of birth, parents’ full names and parents’ phone numbers posted publicly on school websites. This shows that awareness of protecting personal information is still very limited, not only from students and parents but also in many schools.

Awareness of protecting personal information is still very limited, not only from students and parents but also in many schools. (Illustration: Internet)

Regarding the scam "child is in emergency", Mr. To Hong Nam said, immediately after receiving the information, the Ministry of Education and Training directed schools and localities to propagate, coordinate with agencies and functional units to promptly issue warnings as well as recommend preventive solutions.

Experts recommend that when receiving a call informing that their child is in an emergency at the hospital, parents should remain calm to receive accurate information; absolutely do not transfer any money as requested, and try to contact the person directly responsible for their child at school such as the homeroom teacher or principal to verify the information.

In addition, some suspicious signs of fraudsters that parents need to pay attention to include different ways of addressing each other, not being able to provide clear personal information, calling during lunch break, in the middle of the night or after work, etc. In case of suspicion of fraudsters, parents need to immediately report to the nearest police station for timely support and handling.