4-10-2023 (KUALA LUMPUR) The “scam industry” flourishing in South-East Asia is churning out billions of US dollars in revenue, prompting regional authorities to intensify their crackdown on scams.
As per the United Nations’ latest report on Online Scam Operations and Trafficking, global scam activities netted a staggering US$7.8 billion (S$10.7 billion) in stolen cryptocurrency in 2021, with South-East Asia being a significant contributor to these ill-gotten gains.
In Singapore, authorities are taking robust measures to combat this escalating menace, which led to losses of at least S$633.3 million for its citizens in 2021.
In 2020, the National Crime Prevention Council introduced a mobile app aimed at screening scam calls and messages to prevent them from reaching mobile phone users. The app, known as ScamShield, scrutinizes incoming SMS messages and calls against a list of known scam numbers, filtering them out if there is a match.
Scam SMS messages detected by the app are diverted to the phone’s junk folder, while scam calls are automatically blocked without notifying the user. The country’s Infocomm Media Development Authority has also imposed a requirement for all organizations to register with the Singapore SMS Sender ID Registry (SSIR).
“This registration is to better protect consumers against non-registered SMS that may be online scams,” the authority explained on its website. Non-registered SMS will be tagged as “Likely-SCAM,” functioning similarly to a “spam filter and spam bin.”
In the Philippines, the country incurred losses of 155 million pesos (S$3.7 million) in the first eight months of 2023 alone, according to news portal Rappler. The most common modus operandi involved online selling scams targeting self-employed individuals aged 21 to 40 using social media messenger apps.
In 2022, to address the growing incidence of cyber fraud, the country’s central bank mandated that all financial institutions implement an automated and real-time fraud monitoring and detection system. The nation is also exploring legislation to criminalize attacks on financial accounts through phishing, vishing (voice phishing), smishing (SMS scams), and the like.
Additionally, minimum standards will be imposed on financial service providers, with non-compliant providers held liable for losses and required to refund defrauded amounts.
At the local level, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil revealed that his ministry is in discussions with the Prime Minister’s Department to submit a Cabinet Memorandum regarding the establishment of a National Anti-Scam Task Force within Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to combat online scams.
Bank Negara Governor Datuk Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour recently announced that all major banks in Malaysia have implemented restrictions on authentication apps to a single device and introduced a “kill switch” for customers.
“These efforts have yielded positive results, with a 58% reduction in unauthorized online banking transactions reported to the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) over the last five months,” he stated at the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
The “kill switch” is a feature that empowers customers to deactivate their bank accounts and application access should they detect anything suspicious or believe they have fallen victim to a scam.
Malaysia has also established the National Scam Response Centre hotline at 997 for the public to promptly report any scam cases or attempts. According to the Royal Malaysia Police, Malaysia experienced a significant surge in online scams during the Covid-19 pandemic, with a total of 71,833 scams and losses exceeding RM5.2 billion (S$1.5 billion) reported from 2020 until May 2022.
