CITIZENS COMPASS- MANY Nigerians have innocently lost a huge amount of money to internet fraudsters in a way that cannot is better imagined than expected.
The aftermath of this is that many has been sent to their early grave and denied some the privilege of meeting up with family responsibilities.
So many bank customers have had their accounts hacked without traces of any sort.
In September 2022, suspected fraudsters, during a three-day cyber-attack, hacked a customer’s account domiciled in an old generation bank and fraudulently transferred N523,337,100 from the account to 18 different accounts in the same bank.
The spokesperson for the Police Special Fraud Unit in Ikoyi, Lagos State, SP Eyitayo Johnson, in a statement on Wednesday, said the suspects subsequently transferred the money from the 18 accounts into 225 other accounts domiciled in 22 other banks and financial institutions.
He said the coordinated cyber-attack was carried out on Saturday, April 23, till the early hours of Monday April 25, 2022, before business opened, adding that two suspects had been arrested in connection to the crime.
A recent survey carried out by Agusto&Co has revealed that 59 per cent of bank customers sampled indicated that they have fallen victim to fraud.
According to the survey, 41 per cent said their accounts hadn’t been compromised, “however, the remaining had been victims through phishing emails, data breaches, unauthorised access to accounts through USSD, and others.”
Agusto&Co in its ‘2022 Consumer Digital Banking Satisfaction Index’ also called for investment in cyber security and awareness to avert bank customers falling victim to breaches in their accounts.
“Approximately 59 per cent of survey respondents have been fraud victims on the digital platforms of their respective banks. This suggests that more investments in cyber protection by Banks is required to combat the growing exposure to cyber security risks on digital platforms, ”it stated.
About eight years back, a Nigerian was arraigned in an Abuja high court, charged with hacking into a bank server and siphoning out more than N68 billion (over $340 million, £225 million).
The man, Stephen Omaidu, a graduate of Kogi State Polytechnic in Lokoja, entered a not guilty plea and has been remanded in custody pending his trial.
The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accuses Omaidu of participating in the hack along with four others, who all remain at large. Two of them are named as just “Ben” and “Oliver”.
Few details have been released on exactly how the “hack” took place, and indeed on the bank involved, other than that it is a “second-generation bank” – that is, one set up since independence from colonial rule in 1960. Nigeria’s largest banks are mostly older establishments.
The big thing here is, of course, the amount of money involved.
As a way to prevent innocent Nigerians from falling into the hands of internet fraudsters, a Nigerian has reeled out new tactics being adopted by the hackers.
The man simply identified as Engineer Victor has exposed the new technique yahoo boys use in scamming people of their money.
He said with the technique internet fraudsters move money out of their victims’ accounts without having their ATM cards, pins or OTP.
Doing a demonstration, he revealed that what fraudsters do is send unsolicited messages to their potential victims.
Victor said that they get people’s numbers with a special application and they would lose their money when they heed the instructions or do so little as click on the unsolicited message.
Engineer Victor said that banks can do nothing about it because it is done virtually.
He advised Nigerian to delete such messages immediately after they appear on their phones.
