Create fake fanpage of the race to trick online payment

Recently, the Organizing Committee of the Nha Trang Night Run Sanvinest - Khanh Hoa Newspaper 2024 announced the appearance of a fake Facebook account impersonating the Organizing Committee, posting false information, impersonating the race to scam athletes.

Accordingly, on this fake fanpage, the subjects provided the account number: 9486786839, opened at Techcombank, the account holder is COAREST LLC, which was just established on October 16, with Hong Thu Ha as the legal representative. COAREST LLC's main business line is wholesale of household appliances.

Notably, this is not the first time fake fanpages of the Nha Trang Night Run Sanvinest program have appeared, causing many victims to have their property stolen, affecting the reputation and image of the program.

Jogging is a popular sport in Vietnam. (Photo: Chi Hieu)

The common trick of the above subjects is to create fake fanpages that look exactly like the official fanpage interface. Here, the subjects post false information about the programs, attaching sophisticatedly designed images or copying from the official fanpage, making many users easily trust.

Once the victim has fallen into the trap, the scammers will ask for payment of money such as program participation fees, system fees or other additional costs. After the victim transfers the requested money, the subject will block all communication to seize the entire amount.

The impersonation of reputable organizations and units is now at a sophisticated level. Not only are there fan pages on social networks, but scammers can also use artificial intelligence to create websites and applications impersonating banks, financial institutions, and payment intermediaries.

Then, approach the victim in many ways (running ads, spreading messages impersonating the bank or impersonating bank employees to call the victim...) to steal the user's personal information and carry out a fraud scenario to appropriate property.

According to cybersecurity experts, the process of creating a copy for malicious purposes only takes a matter of minutes, and this is the reason why fake applications and fake websites have appeared widely on Vietnamese and international cyberspace in recent times.

Notably, developing apps or websites using no-code technology (no programming) or AI code (using AI programming) is often significantly shortened compared to traditional programming methods. Because no-code platforms can reduce development time by up to 90% compared to having to write code from scratch.

Thanks to this powerful support, cybercriminals only need less than 1 hour to create interfaces that are 100% similar to the account login page features of banks, even the domain names are similar despite only small differences such as minus signs, periods or using subdomains.

Faced with the above scams, the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) recommends that people be cautious with posts or information of unknown origin on social networks. Verify the transparency of information by proactively searching on official websites.

Never follow instructions or make money transfers to strangers. Never provide sensitive personal information in any form. Never access strange links. Never share bank account numbers, OTP codes, passwords, or any sensitive information.

In case of suspicion of being scammed, people need to immediately report to the authorities or consumer protection organizations for timely support, resolution and prevention.

Chi Hieu

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