Dr Yii warns of increase in scams using Facebook accounts
KUCHING: Parents and teachers should be aware of a growing scam happening quite rampantly on Facebook, affecting children and students.
In Kuching, hackers reportedly threatened underage students to send nude or compromising photos of themselves through the internet.
“We received a few complaints from parents regarding how their children’s Facebook accounts were hacked and being used to send personal messages through Facebook Messenger to their friends, pretending to be them to ask for things or to obtain certain private information including personal photos of themselves,” said Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii in a press statement yesterday.
According to Dr Yii, the hackers will first send a private message on Facebook through an account of a friend or a familiar person which they have hacked earlier, asking the victim to click on a link with an excuse to help them verify something. Once they have clicked on the link, the hacker will then gain full control of that particular Facebook account, then use this account to trick others on the victim’s friend list again, and the cycle continues.
“We have received multiple cases since last year of such scam where these hackers have often used such Facebook accounts to obtain personal information of a person or even ask for money. Many have fallen prey to such scam because they thought the person asking was really their friend or relative based on the Facebook account that contacted them.”
However, the scam has escalated, and now such hackers are even threatening secondary school students to send nude videos or photos of themselves in compromising positions. Sadly, some have fallen prey to such scam and have uploaded such photos to the hackers.
“When we received such news, we urged the parents to immediately lodge a police report and also, we accompanied them to lodge a report at Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ( MCMC).
“We view this very seriously as it involves blackmail and worse, child pornography as underage children were threatened to send these compromising photos.
“We thus strongly urge the police department together with MCMC to view this matter urgently and take immediate actions to protect our children and students from such cyber attacks and cyber scams. Imagine the trauma our students and children, including the parents, will have to go through if these photos are leaked to the public.
“I also encourage all parents and teachers to be aware of such happenings and to protect their children, especially with their interactions online. While we see the benefit of the internet and other social media applications, we must also exercise caution and also not to reveal too much of our personal information on the internet, even on Facebook.”
He encouraged victims and their parents to come forward and said he would do his best to assist them through the necessary procedures while protecting the identity and confidentiality of the victims.
“We must work together in order to protect our children from such heinous crimes against them,” he said.