“Tale of Mama 4.0”. Travel ads and covid vaccination, whatsapp account hacking and cyber-scams

As lifestyles become digital, there are more consumption habits in less time. But this phenomenon is improved at certain times. Like New Years celebrations, long weekend travel deals or mega sale events black monday One Holy Friday And even the last soccer world cup has had some of those situations. In recent days, there have been issues related to vaccine doses for Covid. They are called “seasonal dates” because a large part of society consumes them based on common interest. However, waiting for that boom in demand, through hyper-connectivity and technology dependency, hackers are at work. so, Cyber ​​crime, theft of WhatsApp lines and cyber scams are on the rise, resulting in millions of dollars in fraud.

Gabriel Lieutexplains the founder and CEO of BTR Consulting, a firm specializing in digital risk management WhatsApp “is the cornerstone of most digital scamsknown today “Mama Story 4.0”, since “there is a general consensus about its use”. From businessman to executive, they solve everyday situations with the popular messaging app. “It is the raw material for designing and executing the chain of steps that lead to cybercrime.“, it says.

Last December in Argentina The main digital scams are related to the “World Cup fever” for the Qatar Cup, the national team became the champion. Fraudulent advertisements of flights or tickets, false links or apocryphal services are some traps. But, on another note, over the past few weeks, the Hoaxes linked to the implementation of the fifth dose of the covid vaccine.

These are fraudsters posing as public servants of the Ministry of Health They provide shifts and digital certificates or “keys” to be removed from notification lists to carry out the last vaccination against Covid.. Once they interact with the future victim, the latter “voluntarily” provides their data for a form or chooses to enter a link they were sent. In this way, cybercrime gains access to mobile devices, private keys and/or manipulation of bank accounts.

“Typically, it ranges from identity theft to impersonating someone whose WhatsApp account was stolen based on the fifth dose of the vaccine. There are subtler techniques, but sometimes trivial means like copying and pasting a photo of your avatar suffice. From another number that you didn’t plan on, you have to convince yourself that it’s me”, the graphic lefty. “That means they won’t pass on your information,” he concludes.

Experts agree that a kind of “perfect storm” occurs in “season scams.” First, it is necessary to conceive it Each person in Argentinian households has an average of three mobile devices. The menu goes from cell phone and computer or Tablets For game consoles and network televisions. As technology has expanded its scope to the point of almost obliterating distance, it has paved the way for criminals who want to steal our data deposited in the digital universe.

Then, another pillar is the commercial pillar: As demand puts pressure on supply, so does the number of people who die Cyber ​​hackers. In addition, social networks also act as windows of our lives to the world. According to Jurdo, “Criminals can easily copy a photo from Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, but another way to trick a victim is through the vocabulary they use. Cybercriminals research potential impersonators through their social media accounts Before contacting their contacts to commit fraud.”

On November 16, 2022, BTR revealed that 487 million WhatsApp numbers were involved in the sale of a database published by a reputed hacker forum.. That’s about a quarter of the messaging app’s total users. The scam reached 84 countries. They include Argentina, Egypt, USA, UK, Italy, France, Turkey, Russia and Chile. Nationwide, about 2 million phones were intercepted.

“The tracking policy WhatsApp (and many other companies) institute to understand its users’ tastes, preferences and behaviors is cannon fodder for cybercriminals,” analyzes Zurdo. Argentinian society has the 5th highest time spent on the Internet worldwide. With 9 hours and 40 minutes, it is surpassed only by the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. “We unlock our phones up to 120 times a day, for no apparent reason, mostly out of inactivity.”, he concludes.