MTN Ghana & E-crime Bureau Equips Journalists in combating Cyber fraud

As Ghana as a country is gradually migrating to the cashless society, some unscrupulous persons have also created some sophisticated means of defrauding people who are patronizing the mobile money service.

Some of these customer related setbacks are fraud cases which has been categorized as follows: phishing, advance fee scams , overcharging by merchants, identity theft /impersonation and cash out theft.

However, as part of efforts to clamping down on this serious crime at its tender age , MTN Ghana in partnership with E-crime Bureau has taken a judicious step by organizing a sensitization workshop for the media in Accra, to help arm them with all the relevant information and also to disclose the various means being used by the perpetrators.

Through this sensitization, the media would then educate the masses; since the more people become aware of this heinous crimes, the less vulnerable they are.

Addressing the media at the workshop, the General Manager Mobile Financial Services ,MTN Mr Eli Hini, stated unequivocally that, the menace is of grate of concern to them as a company. This is the reason we are working assiduously with the police service and E-crime Bureau to bring the situation under control.
According to him, already MTN Ghana has trained Security Personnel of the Ghana Police Service and some members of Journalists for Business Advocacy.
“As MTN purses its vision lead the delivery of a bold new digital world; we will work closely with security agencies to curb the growing concern about money fraud”, he stated.

This he said, over the years MTN Mobile Money has grown to become a household choice for financial transactions recording a subscriber base of over 9 million and merchant points of over 63,000 across the country.
The feat was achieved through constant education and engagement with their stakeholders to accept Mobile Money as the safest and fastest means of undertaking financial transactions.

As we drive a cashless agenda through financial inclusion, we have also undertaken several steps to ensure that our systems are robust enough to provide a secured service. However, Mr. Eli Hini, cited the following security tips:

-Disregard calls from anonymous callers and unknown persons claiming they have goods from abroad to be delivered to you.
-Or offering to assist you to perform a transaction as a result of network challenges.
– Mobile Money Limited will not demand any amount from you to redeem your supposed prizes
– Do not use your PIN for a very long period; change your PIN at least every month.
– Mobile Money Limited will NOT under any circumstances , ask for your MM PIN CODE.

“As a result of the system enhancements , MTN was granted ISO/IEC 27001: 2013 certification after an assessment conducted by Lloyds Register Quality Assurance(LRQA). This ISO/ IEC 27001: 2013 certification demonstrates that MTN Mobile Money has enhanced services that meet international standards”, he explained.

The Founder & Principal Consultant of e-Crime Bureau Mr. Albert Antwi- Boasiako, disclosed that at least five out of ten mobile money subscribers have either experienced one form of fraud or have been a target for mobile money fraudsters/scammers.

subscribers are mainly targeted through SMS, phone calls, e-mails and social media platforms and many more .

Thus, there is a need to create consumer awareness among mobile money patrons to safeguard this payment innovation which is destined to contribute to Ghana’s payment system in the next coming years

According to him,the media is an important stakeholder within the Mobile Money ecosystem especially in public education.
Understanding how mobile money works and the current fraud trends will enhance fact-based reporting.

Since the media advocacy is also an important initiative to address challenges facing the Mobile Money industry. This will also help build public confidence on Mobile Money.
This workshop is expected to empower media personnel to support the growth of the industry which is destined to dominate our payment industry for at least the next 20 years.

According the Principal Consultant, their analysis has established that web portals belonging to some media houses are currently under cyber-attacks.
Attackers are using Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack schemes to flood traffic of targeted media houses.

“Media organizations are therefore advised to ensure the security of their web portals by implementing regular traffic monitoring, migration from share-hosting to dedicated hosting services, conducting security assessment of the website infrastructure and deployment of third party applications to detect and prevent cyber intrusions among other cyber safety best practices”, he advised.

e-Crime Bureau is the first digital forensics, fraud investigations & cyber security firm with a dedicated e-Crime Lab to operate in Ghana with operational representatives in Africa to provide state-of-the-art cyber security, fraud prevention & counterfeit detection solutions and e-crime investigations services to the law enforcement agencies, attorneys & paralegals, government agencies and corporate sector organizations across Africa.

The organization provides a wide range of services including counterfeit detection & documents forensics, expert witness services, litigation support, cyber & data security services, incident response, fraud investigations & countermeasures, security intelligence, cyber crime investigations & digital forensics, research and training.

Source: NewsGhana.com.Gh