How Kenyans’ Love For Freebies is Being Used to Hack Phones, Bank Accounts
The increased use of social media has exposed naive Kenyans to online security threats, which a majority are not aware of.
In different social media platforms, links are usually shared, asking users to click and get some rewards or even a share a certain number of times to get rewarded, only to end up being a false and malicious link.
Just a few days ago, a popular local supermarket issued a warning to its customers against an online questionnaire that has been making rounds on social media, specifically on Whatsapp.
Customers had been promised prices up to Ksh9,000 if they answered the questionnaire, but it turned out to be one of those fake posters shared on social media to hoodwink Kenyans unknowingly.
File image of a man on his phone
Other than that, links promising Kenyans different prizes are usually shared on many pages. Many have failed to ask themselves who has ever won anything by sharing and clicking on those links.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, a victim of online threats, Moses Mudogo, stated that his phone was secretly accessed by techies and his contacts exposed after clicking on one of those online links.
He narrated that he got lured into clicking the links after seeing a huge cash reward that was associated with it. As a result, his contacts were breached and those behind the link shared messages to his contacts soliciting money.
“Waah, it was a bad experience,” he stated, ” I saw one of those links on Facebook, it had a cash reward of Ksh8000 and the steps to fill were just easy, I quickly jumped into it.”
He added, “before I could finish filing the questionnaire the link started misbehaving, so I kept trying but I could not finish. Later I started receiving calls from some of my friends telling me that I had sent them messages of distress requesting money, I did not do that.”
After several hours, he however managed to regain control of his phone. He claimed that the techies might have cloned or taken control of his phone completely.
He, unfortunately, lost the little amount he had on his mobile money account.
How They Scam Online Users
According to IT expert Denis Kamau who Kenyans.co.ke spoke to, fraudulent techies use multiple ways to take advantage of naive…
