Hong Kong police said they received more than 150 WhatsApp account hijacking scam reports over the past two weeks, with total losses exceeding HK$15 million. In one recent case, an employee at a local company engaged in virtual currency exchange had their account hijacked. Fraudsters blocked the original work group, blacklisted its members, then created a fake group by copying the group photo, name, members, and profile images. Posing as customer representatives, they asked for a currency exchange. The victim followed routine practice and first transferred cryptocurrency to a wallet specified by the scammers. The fraud was only discovered after the client account was found to have an insufficient balance and the victim made a phone call to verify the situation. The company lost more than HK$4 million. Police said WhatsApp groups can be faked, but member phone numbers cannot be made identical to those in the real group, and message timestamps also cannot be fully replicated. They advised the public to enable two-factor authentication, verify counterparties by phone before making transfers, and avoid logging into accounts on public Wi-Fi or public computers.
Hong Kong police said they received more than 150 reports of WhatsApp account hijacking scams over the past two weeks, with total losses exceeding HK$15 million.
In a recent case, an employee at a local company involved in virtual currency exchange had their account hijacked. The scammers blocked the original work group and blacklisted its members, then set up a fake group by copying the group photo, group name, members, and profile images. They posed as customer representatives and requested an exchange.
The victim, following usual practice, first transferred cryptocurrency to a wallet designated by the other party. The scam was discovered only after the client account was found to have an insufficient balance and a phone call was made to verify the matter. The company lost more than HK$4 million.
Police said WhatsApp groups can be forged, but member phone numbers cannot fully match those in the genuine group, and message timestamps also cannot be duplicated. They advised users to enable two-factor authentication, verify the other party by phone before making transfers, and avoid logging into accounts on public Wi-Fi or public computers.
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