Havana Cuba. — With the advancement of technology and the growing adoption of electronic commerce in Cuba, online attacks have intensified.
In recent days, various scams have been reported on the island in the digital environment related to bank cards and mobile balances that have affected numerous users.
In these cases, the victims often suffer significant economic losses that have a devastating impact on their personal finances.
The Cuban authorities have issued some warnings and recommendations to the population to exercise extreme precautions; however, a large part of the deceptions take place in the context of the informal market, which causes many to refrain from reporting these crimes.
Currently, the methods most used by cybercriminals are phishing, accompanied by social engineering. Criminals send messages posing as state entities or directly convince their victims to send them confidential information.
“They fooled me with a simple SMS”
transfermóvil It is the most used payment application in Cuba for digital commerce. The platform uses the sending of text messages (SMS) and USSD codes for its operation, characteristics that cybercriminals take advantage of to deceive their victims.
A recurring form of scam is the receipt of a payment confirmation SMS. Normally, when a person makes a transfer, they can add a phone number to which an SMS arrives confirming the payment.
Osmany González, a Cuban who was the victim of a digital scam, explained to CubaNet about how he fell into the trap.
“It all starts with a currency trading announcement. In my case, the scammer posted a post on Facebook through a fake profile pretending to be interested in buying MLC with an offer that caught my attention. When I contacted and set a price, the thug sent me an SMS identical to the one Transfermóvil sends as if he had paid me. At that moment I saw the false payment confirmation, I thought that he had sent me the money and I made the MLC transfer to close the business,” said the young man.
Facebook’s fake friend
Another digital hoax to scam mobile balance takes advantage of social networks to look for possible victims. The hacker creates a fake profile posing as a friend of the target person and convinces him that he has a big problem and urgently needs mobile balance.
“One of my friends contacted me on Facebook Messenger and asked me for a 500 CUP balance because his child was hospitalized and he couldn’t recharge his mobile. I didn’t think twice, when I made the first transfer he asked me for more money and I started to get suspicious. I checked his profile and it was identical to that of a friend of mine, but I realized that it was false. By then it was too late,” Manuel Reyes, a young man from Havana who was also a victim of scam, revealed to this newspaper.
wrong SMS
Another type of scam to steal mobile balance relies on text messages. The attacker sends an SMS posing as ETECSA. The message recreates the text that the Cuban company sends when a balance transfer is made. Immediately afterwards, the scammer sends another SMS in which he assures that he made a transfer due to a mistake in the telephone number and asks that his balance be returned to him.
In the above cases, it is enough to check the origin of the message to realize that it is an attempted scam.
Unfortunately, antiviruses can’t do anything against these types of attacks: protection depends entirely on caution and verification by people.
Specialized sources recommend not clicking on suspicious links, being cautious with unexpected emails and messages, as well as staying informed about these issues.
