Warning for anyone buying or selling a home in South Africa

Legal experts have warned of a rise in criminal activity targeting property sales in South Africa, where fraudsters are intercepting electronic communications.

According to experts at Wright Rose-Innes, property transactions are increasingly reliant on digital communications for speed and convenience, but this has made them prime targets for criminals.

The group noted that this puts sensitive information and even large sums of money at stake, especially as newer technologies like deepfakes and AI become more prevalent.

“Cybercriminals often try and impersonate property practitioners and conveyancers and target the sellers and purchasers of properties, employing different measures to try and trick sellers or purchasers into transferring or depositing funds into fraudulent bank accounts,” the experts said.

William Petherbridge, Systems Engineering Manager at cybersecurity group Fortinet, warned that Artificial intelligence and deepfake technology have advanced to the point that fraudsters can mimic key people.

This could be a chief executive of a company on video, or even a chief financial officer over voice, approving large transactions.

There have already been reported cases of criminals using these technologies to get approval from unsuspecting victims to transfer large sums of money into accounts or to make unsanctioned payments.

The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) has issued stark warnings about the rise in AI-driven fraud scams, explicitly including deepfakes and voice cloning.

With South Africa already identified by Interpol as a global cybercrime hotspot, estimating annual losses in the billions of Rands, the potential financial impact of sophisticated deepfake fraud targeting is immense.

With the property sector relying on digital technologies in the same vein, it, too, is at risk.

What to do to avoid becoming a victim

Wright Rose-Innes said that when it comes to property transactions, both sellers and purchasers should take practical steps to reduce the risks of becoming a victim.

The first thing to be wary of is urgent requests for payment, the experts said.

“Cybercriminals take advantage of a purchaser’s and seller’s desire to finalise property transactions and resort to requesting urgent payments to “finalise” a property transaction,” they said.

“A purchaser should think twice before making a payment, as these urgent requests are often accompanied by a change of banking details, which is often overlooked under the guise of urgency.”

It is also vital that all banking details be verified before making any payments.

Cybercriminals will often resort to providing fraudulent banking details or intercepting emails and changing banking details in email communication between conveyancers and the transaction parties or between the parties themselves.

“Sellers and purchasers should, as a precautionary measure, always request their bank to verify banking details before any payment is made,” the firm said.

“Alternatively, a simple telephone call to the conveyancer or property practitioner to confirm their bank account details telephonically will ensure that payments are made to the correct account.”

In addition to these property-specific measures, the experts said that everyone should educate themselves and protect their details and access to email as a standard.

This includes keeping up to date with the different ways criminals attempt to exploit their victims—such as the aforementioned AI and deepfake technology.

Protecting online credentials will prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to accounts and using them to infiltrate the transaction process or change details.

“Having a strong password on your email account, not sharing it with other parties and having a good antivirus programme on your computer can also go a long way to avoiding your account being hacked,” the group said.