Scams|Petteri Järvinen reminds that anyone can be feathered at the right moment.
Police warned on Saturday tens of thousands of Finns with a text message that they have an increased risk of receiving a scam call from criminals.
The background of the message is that the police have found the names of the people who received the text message from the so-called criminals’ playlists. Criminals may call these numbers and try to fraudulently get hold of the number holder’s online banking credentials by pretending to be, for example, a bank clerk or even a police officer.
One among those who received a police warning message was an information security expert Petteri Järvinen. Järvinen says that the text message came to his publicly visible number. He has several phone numbers, but the others were not alerted.
“As far as I know, the number has not been involved in any recent data breaches,” says Järvinen.
“People are probably interested in how their number got on the list and what else can happen to them.”
Järvinen is surprised that his number is on the list even though he has only received one scam call.
“So one and only one, and some people will have them. Why is my number on this list, I don’t understand and I can’t explain,” he says.
“I really wish the scammers would call me so I could track them down and figure them out.”
Järvinen praises the police’s new method of sending targeted warnings by text message. He thinks it’s downright brilliant.
“I think this is a great action by the police. Such general warnings that this or that is going on now, no one can take note of that.”
However, Järvinen suspects that some people may have been scared for nothing. Since it is a new practice, some may think that they are now somehow targeted by scammers.
Järvinen reminds that these are only playlists, which can be compared to the lists of sellers of magazine subscriptions. Lists themselves are not dangerous.
“I think that some older people at least experience this kind of direct contact from the police as if the crime had already happened. That’s not what this is about. This is just such an advance warning. This is the first time for everyone, when this might be overinterpreted.”
Järvinen reminds us that scammers are very persuasive. For example, the background sound of the caller can seem like a real police station, where you can hear, for example, police radio communication and other things that increase credibility.
“They make it so authentic that anyone can go cheap with it, even if they are aware of these things in advance,” he says.
“I believe that any of us can be feathered.”
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