RAK cops empower students to fight cyber bullying, scammers
ras al khaimah — Don’t respond to strangers as online scammers fake caller ID info while trying to win your trust, warned the Ras Al Khaimah Police as they launched a campaign in colleges to raise students’ awareness against cyber bullying.
“The drive is meant to ensure privacy and protect teenage students from scammers who use various tricks to siphon off people’s money, while exploiting them,” said Major Khalid Hassan Al Naqbi, head of media affairs section, RAK Police.
Thousands of brochures — in Arabic, English and Urdu — will be distributed to the students, spelling out tips on proper and safe use of websites and social media networks.
These will warn people about the common mistakes that make the Internet users vulnerable to cyber bullying or online exploitation, Al Naqbi pointed out.
“Students are advised never to respond to unknown people as fraudsters often pretend to be someone you can trust, even as they fake caller ID information,” he added.
“Don’t fall for those lucrative prizes and free trial offers, he added. “Never divulge personal information to anyone while using the Internet at public places,”Al Naqbi said.
The police urged students to immediately report any suspicious practices to the law enforcement bodies on toll free nos. 999, 901 or 072053441. “Keeping the police aware of any scam or suspicious act from the very beginning keeps the public safe against scammers and online bullying as reported in many cases.”
Don’t download unsafe apps with ‘special features’
A few months back, the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) had issued repeated warnings to residents against downloading unsafe applications with ‘special features’.
The warning read: “Beware of ‘WhatsUp Gold’ and other thirdparty applications that claim to include
special features. Such applications are unsafe and threaten your privacy.”
WhatsApp has been used in a number of scams and criminal activities. Recently, a group of hackers posing as members of WhatsApp’s support team tried to dupe unsuspecting users into giving them access to their accounts to hijack sessions.
Earlier, the TRA had issued a notification telling users what to do if their accounts are hacked: “The user needs to remove and reinstall WhatsApp at a different time of the day. They should immediately inform relatives and friends about hacking and urge them not to respond to any messages coming from their number on WhatsApp.”