How criminals fool us with high tech scams: From fake phone calls to deepfake voices and videos

Alarm has meant to the authorities for high technology, with them alerting their customers after the organized circuit action in Volos. Criminal organization from abroad, deceived a businessman, convincing him to change his banking codes, resulting in the loss of all his money. In the context of the fraud, a woman speaking Greek was introduced to him as an employee of the bank and informed him that his account was breached, asking him to introduce new codes into an alleged security procedure. CORVERSE The call appears to be made by a telephone number actually owned by the bank, and the businessman who deals with it never thought it was a fraud. This is the new fraud technique that has also made its appearance in Greece known as “Caller ID spoofing”. New frauds – New techniques As has repeatedly been mentioned, along with the rapid development of e-trades at international and domestic level, the scope of action of fraudsters, who evolve their techniques, and focus on how they will be able to trick and deceive citizens rather than on seeking to violate or “hack” a system of a bank. CORVERSE “Cheats are constantly expanding and evolving,” according to converging reports of bank officials in the Athenian – Macedonian News Agency (APR-ABE), explaining how fraudsters deceive unsuspecting citizens or manipulate them in order to make themselves payments or transfers of money to accounts managed by fraudsters, or by intercepting their e-Banking codes, their credit card data and the OTP codes they receive at the time and are required to approve transactions. How criminals act In particular, fraudsters, in order to reach their potential victims, while waiting and new institutional arrangements use various technological possibilities for fraudulent purposes such as: – They falsify the caller ID number (callerID spoofing), which is technically possible without the bank’s systems being breached, so that another phone number (caller IDspoofing) can appear on the victim’s phone, such as the official number of a bank. The imposter will call or send a message, pretending to be a bank employee, and to sound even more convincing he can use the name of a person who actually works in a bank. He may also know some additional information, such as the first 4-6 digits of the card (which are common identifiers of the bank) and claim that he is going to close the account or close the card due to fraud. To limit illegal Caller ID spoofing, several countries have recently put into effect a relevant legislative framework in which they require telephone providers to implement various technical measures to limit the phenomenon (e.g. US, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Ireland, Malta, Sweden). – They forge a person’s voice or image/video, using Artificial Intelligence, to reproduce his voice or image from video that it has published online (Aivoice clowning, AI video cloning, AI deepfake). The imposter can then communicate (phone call, teleconference, message exchange) with colleagues, friends or family members of the person and use the cloned voice and/or image to trick them and ask for money. Characteristic forms of citizen fraud – Electronic “fishing” elements (card, e-bank codes, etc.), the well-known phishing, via fraudulent email or SMS messages or other message exchange applications (e.g. WhatsApp Messenger, Facebook Messenger). – Attempts to deceive under the pretext of the adoption of government grants, where the expert communicates with unsuspecting citizens, telephone or email, SMS or other message exchange applications. – False phone calls on the pretext that either there is a supposed technical problem with e-banking and cards or their computer is infected with viruses. The calls are made by strangers who play either the technicians from the bank itself or the technicians from a large IT company. – Investment scams where strangers approach their victims either by phone or by email or by social media posts, pretending to work in supposedly large foreign investment companies and promising them high returns by investing money through virtual (fake) investment platforms on the Internet. – False payment orders by email and email exchange applications where fraudsters try to manipulate professionals or merchants who deal with businesses, either as suppliers or as customers, to transfer money to fraudulent bank accounts. – Deception for mediation in the transfer of illegal money, where fraudsters try to persuade unsuspecting citizens to intervene in electronic transfer of money by offering as a fee a percentage of the money. – Deception via internet ads for allegedly selling cars, mobile phones or other products aimed at sending their victims advance payments or the entire amount, but never after receiving what they bought. Protection instructions According to fixed and timeless bank recommendations citizens should: – Be particularly cautious with phone calls and messages that inform them of alleged problems with their accounts, cards or e-Banking. – If they suspect that there is an issue with their accounts or cards, they go directly to e-Banking or m-Banking. – Immediately terminate the call or any other communication and call the customer service number of their bank. – When communicating with them, never reveal their codes or personal and financial details, even on the pretext that they will be deposited with them. – Be particularly cautious with online advertising and social media promising high returns. – To activate the notification services to be informed once a transaction has taken place in an account or their card. Citizens should always remember that banks will not call or send a message (e.g. email, SMS) to: • Ask you to disclose your personal information, such as account and card details, ATM codes and e-Banking, Mobile Banking. • They inform you that your account or card has been locked or has a problem and at the same time lead you to a website to complete login codes for e-Banking, your card data or a One-Use Password (OTP) to solve the alleged problem. EET and TTE ranges The most frequent forms of fraud have also been reported in the recent past by both EET and TTE. The latest EET campaign was a follow-up to the previous ‘One pause’ initiative aimed at informing the entire population and completed in February 2024. In the same context, the Bank of Greece’s recent information campaign on safe payments and protection against electronic fraud. Citizens can be informed in detail about the various types of electronic fraud from the website of the Greek Banking Association and the Bank of Greece.