In recent years, we have heard frequent warnings to beware of scams through various channels, but phone scams continue to happen. In fact, scammers use “social engineering” to obtain personal information, sensitive data, or conduct fraud. Social engineering is the use of psychology and interpersonal relationship skills to exploit human emotions such as curiosity, fear, and trust. Scammers often impersonate others, such as bank clerks, police, government officials, or court personnel, or pretend to be relatives or friends, to trick victims into providing personal information or transferring money, in order to achieve illegal profits.

To prevent to be the victim of the phone scams, here are some tips:

• Stay alert: Scammers will use the above techniques to impersonate others to commit fraud. Therefore, don’t easily trust the identity of the caller and verify their identity through official channels.
• Pay attention to language expressions: Fraud calls often threaten or intimidate victims. Stay calm and pay attention to the caller’s language and accent. If there is any question, you may discuss with family and friends or seek help from relevant institutions.
• Do not disclose personal information easily: Just as “don’t flaunt your wealth,” personal information should also be kept confidential, such as bank card numbers, passwords, and ID numbers. If you need to provide such information, do this through secure and reliable methods.
• Do not easily transfer the money: When a call related to funds is received, do not easily transfer the money. Verify the identity and information of the caller through official channels and ensure the security of the transaction.
• Enhance security awareness: Pay more attention to security information and enhance your ability to identify and prevent fraud. If you notice any suspicious activity, contact the authorities to prevent being scammed.
• Share security information with family members: It is also important to increase the security awareness of the family members, as scammers may use social engineering techniques to deceive or trick them into revealing personal information. Scammers may also use this information to impersonate a family member and carry out fraud activities.

In conclusion, preventing phone scam requires sharp vigilance, enhancing security awareness, not easily disclosing personal information or transferring money, and verifying the identity and information of the caller through official channels. Be cautious about anything about funds, in order to prevent losses.

IT devices have become a part of our lives. No matter how old you are, you can access online information through your device, such as chatting, online shopping, etc. Internet not only brings us useful information, but also makes some scams more accessible to us.

Here are two examples of online scams:

1. Online shopping scams
Have you ever shopped online but did not receive the goods after payment? Most scammers defraud consumers with the following tricks:

• • Use of special offers – Attract buyers with limited offers, sales, overseas purchasing services
  • Lose contact upon receiving money – Ask buyers to transfer money into a specific account and refuse to trade face to face. Once the money is received, the sellers disappear into thin air.

2. Online job search scams
   Fraudsters post job ads on various social media platforms, forums or instant messengers, and lure job seekers intopaying fees, guarantee fees or other chargesunder various pretexts. After snatching the money, the fraudsters will be out of contact. Such scams may have the following characteristics:

• • Offer high salary or work from home jobs
  • Low academic qualifications or age requirements
  • Do not mention the specific job post and duties
  • Do not mention the name or address of the company, but only provide contact information with instant messenger or mobile phone number

In the above cases, the psychology of people who want to get a discount or preferential treatment is exploited for scams.

Here are some tips to prevent the above scams:

• • Remember that the Internet is a virtual world where anyone can assume a false identity.
  • Always be alert to people or messages from unknown sources.
  • If possible, shop on shopping platforms with a good reputation to reduce the risk of being scammed.
  • When shopping, pay attention to the origin of goods to avoid inadvertently running afoul of the law.
  • Be careful when applying for a job. You can start by collecting data to verify that the company or job actually exists.
  • If you encounter any problems, you should talk to your family or friends.

Reference

• • https://www.pj.gov.mo/Web//Policia/hints
  • https://cyberdefender.hk
  • https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-social-engineering

Occasionally, you might need to transmit, store, edit and access different types of data for work purpose. No matter what format the data stored as, we are obliged to ensure proper security measures and controls are adopted on UM data to avoid data leakage, especially the confidential data. Some common causes of data leakage are human errors, weak password being cracked, stolen credentials, lost of devices, software vulnerabilities being used, insecure network connection, etc. Disclosure of confidential data may cause damage to the reputation of the University or may have certain legal implications. Therefore, please refer to the below tips to protect the data:

Protect data with password and encryption, erase old data
Ensure confidential data is handled as required by the “Guidelines of Confidentiality” and the “Guidelines for Handling Confidential Information”. For example, when you take or process the confidential data outside campus for official work purpose, the data must be protected with password and encryption with encryption tool. In addition, erase all confidential data on the device immediately after processing it.

Transmit and share data carefully
Before sending/replying/forwarding an email, please review the recipients’ email addresses, email content, attachments and ensure they are correct. For example, don’t contain too much personal information or unverified content such as rumors, exclude all unnecessary confidential data in the email history. Besides, when you share data to other people in computer systems, please ensure the privileges are set correctly.

Enable 2FA and use strong password
To minimize the probability of credentials being stolen and password being cracked, please enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) service and use strong password to protect your UM user account. Moreover, use different passwords for different accounts, in particular those for handling confidential data.

Protect your devices by biometric technologies
Besides using password lock, it is also recommended to use biometric technologies to protect your smart phone and tablet, i.e. fingerprint and facial recognition. It can minimize the probability of unauthorized people accessing your personal data, working email, online payment and bank information in case you lost or misplaced the device.

Update computer systems and devices, enable anti-virus software
Ensure the operating systems, web browsers and software on your electronic devices are updated to the latest version, and patch them for vulnerability as soon as possible to prevent attackers from being able to take advantage of the known problems or vulnerability. Please be reminded to enable the real-time protection and monitoring feature of anti-virus software, scan the computer regularly and keep the version up to date.

Be careful in using public WiFi networks and computers
Please always assume public WiFi network and computers are insecure as attackers may capture your data in the same public network or computer you are using. Thus, avoid performing financial or other transactions that involve confidential data while using public network and computers.

How to Use Mass Email Efficiently & Safely

In our daily work, we may need to distribute email to multiple recipients, mail groups or different organizations. What is the most efficient way to do this? Sending it one by one with the same message? or sending it in a mass email? Of course, sending a mass email will be a better choice.

Although distributing mass email saves you time from delivering the same message repeatedly, it comes with some drawbacks at the same time if it is not done carefully. Drawbacks can be disclosure of recipient contacts unnecessarily to third party, or wasting email resources, etc. The following aspects must be considered before sending the mass email:

1. Is the email justified for proper purpose?
2. Will it cause any security/privacy related issues?
3. What will happen if one of the recipients click ‘Reply All’?
4. Will the email confuse the recipients?

To cater the above aspects, we suggest the following:

• Make sure the email aligns with your organization’s mission and approved purpose.
• Use Blind carbon copy (Bcc) to hide the recipient list from individual recipient and it can protect recipients’ privacy. This can also avoid duplicated mass email when any recipient clicks ‘Reply All’.
• Give a clear subject heading can help recipient to differentiate the normal email from spams or phishing.

For more details about Sending Mass Email, please refer to “Guidelines for Sending Mass Email and Using Email Group”.

Reference: Don’t Let a Phishing Scam Reel You In