Lost 6.1 billion VND in account because of installing fake app
Ms. Minh said she believed the scammer and installed fake spyware from the Ministry of Public Security on her phone and had 6.1 billion VND stolen from her bank account.
Ms. Minh reported the incident to Dong Da District Police at the end of January. The incident is under investigation.
On January 31, Dong Da District Police said that according to her statement, Ms. Minh received a phone call from an unknown number from a person claiming to be an investigator. This person informed her that they were investigating a drug case involving Ms. Minh and asked her to declare the amount of money in her bank accounts. The "investigator" then asked the victim to change her current phone to one using the Android operating system.
Citing the reason of "account information security", the "investigator" asked Ms. Minh to download and install an application called "Ministry of Public Security" (vn84app.apk) displays the police badge. After successfully installing the app named "Ministry of Public Security", Ms. Minh continued to follow the instructions to fill in her username, password, bank account, full name, identity card number (citizen identification card)...
Just after completing logging in her personal information and bank account OTP code, Ms. Minh discovered that 6.1 billion VND had been stolen from her account.
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| Image of spyware impersonating the Ministry of Public Security. Photo: Provided by the Police. |
According to the police, "vn84app.apk" is spyware. When installed on smart devices, these malicious files will eavesdrop on calls, steal data, phone contacts, and messages of users, including messages notifying bank account balances and OTP codes for Internet Banking login. The collected information will be sent to a control server abroad for them to use to steal all the money in the account.
Authorities recommend that people do not access these fake software. If you have downloaded the file "vn84app.apk" (fake security monitoring software from the Ministry of Public Security) on your phone, quickly delete it to avoid being taken advantage of by bad guys to steal your property.
This fraudulent application has been warned many times recently, but many people still fall into the trap. Most recently in Nghe An, a teacher was also robbed of 1 billion VND after following the instructions of a stranger to install this software.
Mr. Vo Do Thang, Director of the Athena Center for Risk Warning and Cyber Security, said that this trick is not new but has been sophisticatedly transformed to deceive users. Users should not install strange software that has not been verified through many sources of information; should not access strange links or install applications from links of unknown origin. "Only install applications on Google Play or the App store because at least when they are put here, they have been verified by network security," Mr. Thang said.
To ensure the safety of mobile devices, Mr. Thang recommends installing software to detect fraudulent and spyware applications for about 900,000 VND per year. Many applications are used normally when downloaded, but when updated, they are fraudulent software.
