The Postal Police has reported a new scam campaign on WhatsApp: it all starts with a request for money. The interesting point is that this request does not come from unknown numbers but from one of our contacts in the address book.
For scams via WhatsApp we were used to always a little awkward requests. The relative who out of nowhere says he needs a bank transfer, the one who writes from an unknown number to say he has lost his smartphone or the one who asks for money because he has just done an accident. Some done better, some done worse. The scam campaign recorded in recent weeks in Italy, however, has something very different from the others. It can still be identified, of course, but it has a much greater level of complexity. There are many testimonies, starting from the creator Alessia Morelli.
“I was talking to this friend of mine and at a certain point she asked me to do her a huge favor”. Hence the request: “She told me that she had exceeded her card limit and had asked me to make a transfer with a certain amount of money”. The message did not arrive coldly. Out of nowhere. It comes in the middle of a conversation that’s already underway. Alessia Morelli managed to avoid the scam. Perhaps there was some problem with sending the data since the IBAN for the bank transfer was never sent.
The comments on the video are full of users who they tell the same story. They too received messages with bank transfer requests from numbers they already had in their address book. Not only that. Usually these messages they appear only to those who receive themnot to the contact from which they are sent. An aspect that makes them even more difficult to locate. Here we also talked about it with the coach Antonio De Bortoli.
WhatsApp stops working for four hours: accounts “under review”
The note from the Postal Police: it is a zero-click attack
In the last few hours the Postal Police has issued a statement regarding this scam, where the origin of the trap is better explained: “The vulnerabilities identified concern outdated versions of iOS and WhatsApp on Apple devices and, in some cases, pcan be exploited without the user having to take any action. Once they gain access to the account, criminals can send messages pretending to be a known person, such as a family member or friend, and ask for money by pretending to be in an emergency situation.” In jargon this attack is called “zero-click“: The victim is hit without even clicking on a decoy.
The problem should therefore be linked to outdated version of the iOS operating systemthe one used by iPhone, or directly from WhatsApp. The first tip to avoid these scams is therefore to always update everything: operating system and apps. To update the operating system just follow this path: Settings>General>Software Update. To update WhatsApp, if you have not entered automatic updates, you must go to App Store or Play Storedepending on whether you use an iPhone or Android, search for the WhatsApp app and check that it is up to date. In any case, before sending large sums of money to your contacts, it is better that you ascertain the request with a call.
