News & Reviews:   online fraud

The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) has revealed that online fraud cases in Malaysia have caused losses exceeding RM19 million from 1 January to 24 March this year. Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) acting director Datuk Rohaimi Md Isa added that online fraud cases have also risen by 36.9% compared with the same period last year.

Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari yesterday revealed that a total of 5,091 online fraud cases were recorded in the state last year. Speaking at the Selangor Legislative Assembly (DUN), Amirudin said that the cases resulted in losses amounting to RM386,426,494.32.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil recently revealed that Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and Telegram have been identified as the most preferred platforms for scammers to commit fraud in Malaysia. He added that losses from scams and fraud on these 4 platforms had easily reached hundreds of millions of ringgit.

The Cyber Incident Response Centre (Cyber999), which is under the purview of CyberSecurity Malaysia, revealed that it recorded a total of 5,181 cybersecurity incidents so far this year. Specifically, the number is recorded from January to October 2024.

The Minister of Communications has revealed several concerning statistics regarding fraud and scam content in our country. These include how Malaysia has lost RM3.18 billion to online scams between 2021 and April 2024.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Legal and Institution Reform) M. Kulasegaran in Parliament today revealed that a total of 14,490 online fraud cases were recorded from January to 15 June 2024. The cases amounted to losses exceeding RM581 million.

Google recently weighed in online via Mark Risher, Senior Director for Account Security, Identity, and Abuse about the current online security COVID-19 situation. On Google’s side, Google Meet, GMail and Google Play Protect for example have mostly built-in automatic protections but there are a number of checkup tools to see if you’re safe or not and the advice on what to do about it. On our part, we’ve seen a marked increase in such scams.