Helping a stranger tap on their phone in a public place may result in your facial and voice data being collected. Scammers often pose as elderly people, dress neatly, and pretend to be poor with technology or to have blurry vision, asking you to help check a pension or allowance account, or to get out of a link they tapped by mistake. In reality, the phone has been pre-installed with a mode that runs in the background: the front camera records the face of the person holding the device while also saving fingerprints, voice, etc.

Victims do not lose cash immediately, but may later bear debts of tens or hundreds of millions of dong. From the stolen data, scammers use AI to create fake (deepfake) versions of the victim’s face and voice to get past biometric authentication, take out online loans, withdraw credit card limits, etc.

Bkav cybersecurity experts advise:

• Do not hold or operate a stranger’s phone; direct them to an information counter, a security guard or a bank.
• Do not read out verification codes or messages aloud, and do not look into the camera on someone else’s device. Do not provide OTP codes, passwords or ID card photos to anyone.
• Set a low transfer limit, turn off online credit card payments when not in use, and turn on account balance change notifications.
• If you have already operated a stranger’s phone for them, you should recheck your cards and personal payment accounts, lower your transaction limits, and call the bank’s call center to request that e-banking services be locked.
• Change the passwords of your banking apps, e-wallets and email; log out of unfamiliar devices.
• Go to a bank branch to re-update your own biometrics in person, and check your credit information (via the CIC app or your bank) to detect any abnormal loans.
• Report to the police at your place of residence, providing the location, time and characteristics of the subject as a basis in case a dispute arises over a loan taken out in your name.

Bkav