250 overall online scams in the past two months: SLCERT official

By Pranavesh Sivakumar   

With the recent past showing many online scams and frauds, including that of the Finance Ministry heist, 250 online scams have been reported in the past 2 months, an official from the Sri Lanka Cyber Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT) told the Daily Mirror.   Explaining how these happen, he said these are not sophisticated, complicated processes, whereas they compromise our account and One Time Passwords (OTP)’s with our own knowledge.  

“Scammers run advertisements on Facebook using private companies’ logos and so on. Giving certain discounts on their services. Likewise, they will try to get into their financial applications by stealing the OTPs and passwords. Those are the main cases that reported”, he laid out.  Responding as to how these could be evaded, he highlighted it’s a simple thing of ignoring whenever we get such spam.  “So main thing is whenever you see it, rather than responding to that link, it’s better to verify through the official channels if they have an official channel. Better to confirm through them and they have a direct number or you can if you can visit their office.