Refugee online scams luring the lonely into honey traps
dubai — The online scam artists are finding new ways to target people in the emirate, scamming Dubai residents by pretending to be Syrian war victims and seducing lonely people for money, according to a cyber security firm. BAE Systems, an intelligence firm, said that the UAE, especially businesses in the country, are vulnerable to cyber crimes as very few of them invest in time or resources to enhance their cyber security.
Residents have told Khaleej Times they are receiving emails from scammers pretending to be refugees and are asking for bank account details to ‘help transfer funds.’ A Pakistani resident in Dubai, Faisal Umer, said he almost fell for a tragic story, fabricated by an online scam artist. The email was by someone who called himself ‘Major Mike Moore’ who had found a sealed metal box in Aleppo with $14.6 million inside of it. He said the money was believed to be embezzled by the Syrian authority or fleeing rebels. He asked for help to get the money transferred.
“It’s always the same story – they find money and they need some kind of help to get the money transferred, the catch is that they’ll ask for money first so they can open a bank account or need funds to purchase a tool to open the metal box. First, it was the Nigerian money scam and now they’re using the more recent issues around the world to lure people into their trap,” Umer said.
Another expat, Akram Syed, said he often receives scam emails from women trying to find a “serious man through the internet”. One of
Scammers may be relatively unsophisticated compared to large criminal gangs or statesponsored hackers.” Simon Goldsmith, director cyber security and financial crime of Middle East, BAE Systems
the emails he received from a woman calling herself Olga. She wrote: “I want to destroy the loneliness and to find the good person who, as well as me, will want to share all pleasures of life, so they gave me your email address.”
“These guys are really hard to catch and what’s more horrifying is that we don’t know the limit of our technologies. These scammers are good with devices and humour. Scam artists are protected by firewall and if we try to pinpoint their location it bounces back to different countries. I don’t
The scammers are good with devices and humour. Scam artists are protected by firewall and if we try to pinpoint their location it bounces back to different countries.” Akram Syed, an expat
think there is any stop to these things,” Syed said.
Simon Goldsmith, the director cyber security and financial crime of Middle East, BAE Systems, said that research conducted by analysts have raised ‘significant concerns regarding the vulnerability of organisations in the UAE to cybercrime’.
He said that 70 per cent of senior executives of UAE companies said they expected cyber attacks to increase, yet only 40 per cent said they were increasing time and resources allocated to cyber security, the lowest of all the eight countries surveyed.
“At its heart, this is good old fashioned fraud for financial gain. What makes it a 21st century fraud is that it starts with an email. However, the important distinction to be drawn between online scams against individuals and the more sophisticated and elaborate schemes operated by professional criminals is one of scale,” Goldsmith said. “As the experience of the criminals grow and the potential scale of the gains increase, the way in which fraud is conducted becomes more planned, organised and automated.”
Goldsmith said that scammers often try to find and exploit the weaknesses of organisations and individuals and trick people into giving in sensitive information. “Scammers may be relatively unsophisticated compared to large criminal gangs or state-sponsored hackers but they too often exploit the major weakness that is found in each and every organisation: human psychology. Using a variety of media, including phone calls and social media, attackers trick people into offering them access to sensitive information.”