One in three Belgians received a phishing message last month: fen …

The phenomenon of phishing, where scammers try to steal someone’s bank code in order to withdraw money from their bank account, has become a common social problem during the corona crisis. No one is spared, according to new figures from sector federation Febelfin. At the same time, too few Belgians are aware of this fraud technique.

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More than one in three Belgians (34 percent) said they had received a phishing message in the past month. More than half (56 percent) received such a message in the last six months, according to a survey in collaboration with the research bureau IndiVille. “So you have to be constantly on the alert,” Febelfin warns.

However, not enough is known about phishing. About 12 percent of Belgians have never heard of “phishing”; among young people (up to 30 years) this is even 30 percent.

7 percent shared data

This ignorance means that 3 percent of those who have ever received a phishing message agree to it. This is even 5 percent for young people. In the past six months, 7 percent of Belgians shared financial information about which they felt uncomfortable. This is even 17 percent for young people. Febelfin calls this “disturbing”.

Three percent say they would provide their bank codes if the bank requests it; for young people this is 8 percent. And that is exactly what cyber criminals do: try to steal the code by posing as a bank.

Anxiety diminished

“Although the figures show that cyber criminals are seizing the corona crisis en masse, concerns among Belgians about cybercrime have decreased,” Febelfin notes. The sector organization notes that Belgian banks continue to invest in additional security measures, as a result of which more than three-quarters of all fraudulent transfers are detected and blocked or recovered. “But guaranteeing smooth and fast payment traffic and efficient fraud detection is a difficult and delicate balance, also in terms of ease of use for the customer”.

One in three Belgians thinks extra safety steps are unnecessary when shopping online, especially young people find this an obstacle, according to the survey.

The banking federation emphasizes that it is actually easy to avoid phishing. This is possible by never giving your personal codes in response to an email, text message, telephone call … and by never clicking on a link received. You better type the address of your bank yourself, or use the bank app.

The number of successful phishing transactions was about 67,000 last year, with scammers stolen about 34 million euros, it was announced earlier.

Anyone who encounters an attempt at phishing can report this by e-mail to his bank (phishing @ bank domain name) and the online security platform Safeonweb ([email protected]). In 2020, 3,225,234 suspicious messages were forwarded to the latter address, almost doubling in a year.

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