Do you need a loan and is it easy for you to download an “application” on your mobile phone to obtain it? Watch out! You will surely be the victim of a new type of fraud and extortion. They call it doxing.
It is a new cybercrime that takes advantage of people’s economic need and lack of precaution in the care of their personal data.
Such is the harassment, pressure and threat that the victims of cybercriminals can reach the extreme of suicidal ideation due to the stress caused by the violent collection of debts incurred and the defamation to which they are subjected.
The Cyber Police of Mexico City recently launched an alert to the public for this modus operandi that they detected and is growing rapidly.
The Citizen Security Council headed by Salvador Guerrero Chiprés identified 130 apps (applications) that defraud and use illegitimate collection.
In addition, it documented 2,231 reports of fraud and doxing in loans through financial applications, between June of last year and so far this 2022 throughout the country.
The Cyber Police of Mexico City, attached to the Secretariat of Citizen Security, detected doxing through which cybercriminals extort money from the unwary through inappropriate images or texts from the victim.
The “hook” to make victims fall are the applications for mobile phones that offer loans.
And to grant them, they ask loan applicants for access to sensitive information on mobile devices.
With access to citizens’ mobile devices, cybercriminals use their victims’ personal information to extort money, intimidate and threaten them.
They threaten them that they will be exposed on social networks or on adult sites where they will spread private photographs. In the extreme they assure them that they will seize their material goods.
The scheme begins with an offer, on social networks, of easy and fast loans that can be processed through cell phone applications, in which access to the user’s device is requested.
By not covering the amount, the interest on the debt rises and becomes unpayable, explains Guerrero Chiprés.
The names of the 130 applications are listed on the website of the Citizen Security Council.
Doxing is a new and growing modus operandi of theft, fraud and blackmail. But it is one more of the many schemes that have been registered.
The central points of this wave of cybercrimes have to do with the economic need of people and the lack of care in the sites or pages to which they turn.
Last year, the cyber police issued 26 alerts and recommendations for users of the public internet network.
In that period, he received 140 reports related to the theft of WhatsApp accounts. In most cases the stolen accounts were used to borrow money.
Cybercrime has used all kinds of needs of citizens to defraud them. From the “offers” of oxygen tanks, during the pandemic, to the sale of vaccines against Covid or opportunities to earn money easily such as Part-time Online, in which money is supposedly earned and withdrawn easily, through commissions. due to the increase in product sales on digital platforms.
Or the apocryphal pages for online sales during the Hot Sale or the Good End, among many other variants.
The recommendation is to be very careful, avoid falling into such traps and, where appropriate, report it to the Cyber Police or seek legal and psychological help from the Citizen Council.
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Rich and Powerful
He has worked continuously in newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet, in the last 31 years he has specialized in business, finance and economics. He is one of the three hosts of the program Alebrijes, Águila o Sol, a program specialized in economic issues that is broadcast on Foro TV.