{"id":322857,"date":"2019-06-11T15:16:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T13:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=322857"},"modified":"2019-06-11T15:16:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T13:16:34","slug":"mtn-warns-of-syndicate-targeting-business-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/322857\/mtn-warns-of-syndicate-targeting-business-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN warns of syndicate targeting business customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN Business says it is aware of an ongoing fraud issue where customers are being targeted by a syndicate of scammers.<\/p>\n

In a statement sent to customers, the company said that members of the syndicate are posing as employees of MTN Business and convincing customers to hand over sensitive personal information.<\/p>\n

“Please be cautious and know that MTN will never contact you to request a One Time PIN (OTP) to make security or transactional adjustment on your MTN account.<\/p>\n

“Should this happen, you can report it to fraud@mtn.co.za,” the company said.<\/p>\n

SIM-swap fraud also on the increase<\/strong><\/p>\n

Telecoms customers remain a popular target <\/strong><\/a>for South African scammers, with SIM-swap fraud incidents in South Africa has doubled in the past year, according to cybersecurity experts from Kaspersky.<\/p>\n

SIM-swap fraud happens when someone convinces your mobile operator to switch your phone number over to a SIM card that a criminal possesses. In some cases, there are carrier\u2019s employees working together with criminals.<\/p>\n

By diverting your incoming SMSes, scammers can easily complete the text-based two-factor authentication checks that protect your most sensitive accounts in financial services, social networks, webmail services and instant messengers.<\/p>\n

“Despite financial inclusion services prospering, the flip side to this is that it opens up a world of opportunities to cybercriminals and fraudsters who are using the convenience a mobile phone offers to exploit and poke holes in a two-factor authentication process,” said Fabio Assolini, senior security researcher of Kaspersky Lab.<\/p>\n

Assolini said that the total money lost in the attacks varies by country and there are extreme cases, such as one in the United Arab Emirates, where one victim lost $1 million (R14,45 million), while in South Africa one victim reported losing $20,000 (R289,000).<\/p>\n

\n

Read: This South African lost R140,000 to fraud because his bank didn\u2019t act fast enough<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN Business says it is aware of an ongoing fraud issue where customers are being targeted by a syndicate of scammers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":209847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,28],"class_list":["post-322857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-mtn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322869,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322857\/revisions\/322869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}