[kictanet] Sim card swap: How Farah Bashir lost Sh2.6m to fraudsters in hours

Mon May 30 11:54:34 EAT 2022

I have reported several of the spam callers to Safaricom; I don’t know if they just block the numbers, or if they actually report to DCI and allow investigation and prosecution.

If no-one gets prosecuted then this is a no-risk business model. If people get prosecuted then at least there is some risk/cost that must be considered compared to the potential revenue the scammers get…

From: KICTANet [mailto:kictanet-bounces+adam.lane=huawei.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Barrack Otieno via KICTANet
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2022 11:30 AM
To: Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com>
Cc: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Sim card swap: How Farah Bashir lost Sh2.6m to fraudsters in hours

Goodmorning Daktari,

I am in agreement. Most of these attacks are purely Social Engineering moves and indeed they are on the rise and very persistent. We need to step up Consumer awareness and digital literacy, the fraudsters are evolving daily and becoming too sophisticated. Consumers should be encouraged to tighten their security. Two Factor Authentication is a good start. There is need for an evaluation on whether it is adequate, but Consumer Awareness which is believe is in CA's purview and Digital Literacy are key.

Regards

On Mon, May 30, 2022 at 11:20 AM Bitange Ndemo via KICTANet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:
Before we all panic, it is important to dissect the problem here from all sides.  My cousin, a teacher lost Ksh. 57,000 from his bank account. When he called me for help, I asked him many questions. It occurred to me that he had inadvertently given out his data to some unknown people disguising themselves as sales reps marketing a new offer from a competing telecommunications operator. In my view, we need to do the following: take the digital literacy program very seriously, sensitize citizens around data protection laws and leverage artificial intelligence (voice recognition for security purposes) for any withdrawal, especially among the very vulnerable in society.  Institutions like Kenya Power and Lighting Company (virtually every week I receive a fake call from "KPLC") should devise more secure ways of dealing with customers in the digital era.  Since most of the fraud is largely an inside job, much of the backend work should be automated.

Ndemo

On Mon, May 30, 2022 at 10:42 AM Deborah Wanjugu via KICTANet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:
Thank you for this article, Victor.

This is quite frightening because prepaid customers on Safaricom cannot call 100 and get served by an agent (that was my experience which made me migrate back to postpaid).

If the gentleman in this article acted as quickly as he possibly could and reached out to Safaricom on Twitter yet did not get the help he needed then something is terribly wrong with that online reporting system.

I've noticed that when customer service agents respond on social media they respond based on their own perceptions and not what the client tells them. This isn't always the case and I'm not referring to Safaricom alone. As a random example I reported not having received my electricity bill to Kanya Power on Twitter. Instead of sending me my estimate, one of the agents asked for the nearest marker to my place so they could send technical support.

Another problem is when you call to report fraud with your bank then they start asking you questions which feel irrelevant at the time. I once thought my card had been hacked so when I called to report it they asked me some silly questions. I don't remember what they were but I do remember being pissed and having to contain myself under the pressure.

There needs to be a tightening of customer service particularly with respect to online fraud reporting.

I don't know what other pieces need to be fixed. This is where my personal beef is.

Deborah

On Mon, May 30, 2022, 10:14 Victor Kapiyo via KICTANet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:
Morning Listers,

In the news today:

Farah Bashir is yet to come to terms with how his bank accounts were wiped clean by fraudsters, barely two days after he had landed in Johannesburg for a two-week assignment in February.

He painfully recounted how he watched helplessly as Sh2.6 million was withdrawn by hackers in several transactions from his four different Absa Bank accounts between February 7 and February 9.

Read more: https://nation.africa/kenya/news/sim-card-swap-how-farah-bashir-lost-sh2-6m-to-fraudsters-in-hours-3831356

SIM Card fraud has been in the bees lately. The sums lost are pretty high. I bet there are many sad tales from individuals who've lost collasal amounts due to sim swap fraud.

How come we're not able to contain this crimes? I wonder who's the weakest link here that needs to pull up their socks? It's really a big threat to our digital economy if we can't address this growing menace.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this.

Regards,

Victor

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Barrack O. Otieno
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