MBOMBELA – Victims of online-banking fraud have become roadkill on the Internet superhighway. With fraudsters targeting bank clients from unknown locations across the globe and only 200 experts trained to investigate the more than 16 000 cases reported in the past 24 months, no community has been unaffected.
One of the Lowveld’s victims is Ms Patricia Lubisi. Two weeks after her bank account was emptied by a mobile-banking fraudster, she has been informed that her money is gone for good. According to experts, the impostors had accessed details pertaining to her Vodacom and Capitec Bank accounts and emptied the latter. Yet both companies stated that they would not remunerate her.
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Capitec service-recovery department’s Ms Willetha Booysen said Lubisi was a victim of mobile-banking, or “smishing” fraud, which starts with a scammer obtaining his victim’s personal details. According to Vodacom’s spokesman, Ms Londi Sbisi, criminals impersonate their victims and apply to their mobile-phone service providers for new SIM cards. They request SIM swaps, which enable criminals to receive one-time pins and random verification numbers and gain access to one’s bank accounts.
Victims’ phones stop working and they don’t receive SMS notifications of fraudsters emptying their accounts.
What neither Capitec nor Vodacom could explain, was how Lubisi’s information was obtained by such a fraudster. According to Sbisi, SIM swaps are only performed once the person requesting it, has verified personal information of the cellphone-account holder. Yet Lubisi denies having revealed her information to anyone.
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Reports that information such as hers may have been leaked by employees at Vodacom’s head office, were denied by Hawks spokesman, Brig Hangwani Mulaudzi yesterday.
Rapport reported that preliminary investigations by the Hawks pointed towards a syndicate having infiltrated the service provider. “I cannot confirm that,” Mulaudzi said.
The South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s Ms Louise Tordliff and Mulaudzi both said that instances of online-banking fraud have been increasing rapidly. “As more people make use of electronic banking, criminals see opportunities to target this platform,” said Tordliff. “R200,8 million has been lost due to to suspected Internet and cellphone-banking fraud in the past six months. In 2015 our records reflected losses of R135,7 million,” she said. Tordliff added that banks conducted 8 401 fraud investigations in 2015 and 8 254 thus far in 2016.
In as far as police investigations go, Mulaudzi confirmed that victims open cases with the police.
“If the cases prove to be complicated or the value of missing funds more than R1 million, the docket will be transferred to the Hawks.”
Yet according to Mr Jason Jordaan, principal forensic scientist at the Digital Forensics South Africa, each such investigation is complicated, requiring specialist investigation.
“Unfortunately, dockets don’t always end up with the Hawks and remain unsolved,” he said. “Specialist investigations sometimes don’t get done in all cases with merit, as both the police station and the Hawks are overloaded with cases. Mpumalanga has a very small commercial-crimes unit that has to cater for a large population,” he said. In 2014 Jordaan ascertained that there are 200 investigators who specialise in cybercrimes.
“That was in the private and public sectors combined. It might be more today, but we do have a shortage,” he said yesterday.
“The shortage of investigators is not limited to South Africa. Europe and other continents are experiencing the same problem,” he said. According to Mulaudzi, the Hawks would obtain the help of other international crime-fighting organisations like the FBI and Scotland Yard if cross-border links are established during investigations. “This happens regularly during our investigations,” he said.
“We have a good working relationship between the private and public sector and cybercrime detectives from both spheres work well together,” said Jordaan. He concluded that the shortage of specialised individuals was, at this point, no match for the international onslaught of online fraud. “I can advise complainants to go to both the bank and the police and follow up on their cases,” he said.
Meanwhile, Vodacom and Capitec advised clients to keep personal information safe. “Contact Vodacom if you believe your information may have been compromised,” Sibisi urged.
