- Joined
- Oct 7, 2014
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PHISHING ALERT!
Recently, I received this email notification - seemingly from Instagram - telling me that my IG account had been logged in from France.
I immediately sat up. I was in Singapore, not France, could someone have hacked into my account?
Then, I read the email carefully. It looked legitimate, but the sender's email address was not from Instagram nor Meta. This was when I suspected it could be a phishing scam.
As our IG app has a function (under Settings -> Security -> Emails from Instagram) for users to see if Meta has sent us such an email, I quickly checked. True enough, Meta did not. So this was a phishing attempt!
I'm sure many of us have received real notifications like this, which is what makes such an attempt so convincing.
Indeed, scammers are pros in human psychology. They prey on our emotions - in this case our fear of our accounts being hacked, and our trust and familiarity in institutions - to exploit our vulnerabilities.
Combatting scams is an ongoing battle - not just in Singapore, but all over the world. So, it calls for us to all stand together.
Alerting one another and the authorities on scam attempts like these is one way we could prevent others from falling prey.
I will be speaking in Parliament next week on how we are working to combat scams.
Meanwhile, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore - CSA and National Crime Prevention Council Singapore also provide many useful updates on how we can stay safe online. Do share these resources with your loved ones so that we can all stay safe! - Jo Teo
Recently, I received this email notification - seemingly from Instagram - telling me that my IG account had been logged in from France.
I immediately sat up. I was in Singapore, not France, could someone have hacked into my account?
Then, I read the email carefully. It looked legitimate, but the sender's email address was not from Instagram nor Meta. This was when I suspected it could be a phishing scam.
As our IG app has a function (under Settings -> Security -> Emails from Instagram) for users to see if Meta has sent us such an email, I quickly checked. True enough, Meta did not. So this was a phishing attempt!
I'm sure many of us have received real notifications like this, which is what makes such an attempt so convincing.
Indeed, scammers are pros in human psychology. They prey on our emotions - in this case our fear of our accounts being hacked, and our trust and familiarity in institutions - to exploit our vulnerabilities.
Combatting scams is an ongoing battle - not just in Singapore, but all over the world. So, it calls for us to all stand together.
Alerting one another and the authorities on scam attempts like these is one way we could prevent others from falling prey.
I will be speaking in Parliament next week on how we are working to combat scams.
Meanwhile, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore - CSA and National Crime Prevention Council Singapore also provide many useful updates on how we can stay safe online. Do share these resources with your loved ones so that we can all stay safe! - Jo Teo
