Team Herald
MARGAO: Raising an alarm over increasing incidents of WhatsApp account hacking, several senior citizens from South Goa have reported their contacts have been compromised in a chain reaction of cyber fraud.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Most elderly residents, who are not tech savvy, are unable to understand or combat these cyber attacks. According to victims, scammers are hacking their WhatsApp accounts and sending fraudulent money requests to their contacts.
“I received a message asking for money from someone who appeared to be my friend. When I clicked on the message, my own account got hacked,” said 68-year-old Antonio Fernandes. “Within hours, my family members, neighbours and other friends started calling to ask if I had requested money from them,” he added.
While similar scams were previously common with Facebook accounts, the shift to WhatsApp has particularly destabilised the elderly community. Many seniors rely heavily on WhatsApp for daily communication with their family members residing abroad, sharing photos, and making video calls. The recent surge in hacking incidents has left many scared to use their phones, effectively cutting them off from their primary mode of family communication.
Over the last few months, many families have reported that they have fallen victim to this scam pattern in the past month.
“Many such senior citizens depend on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their children abroad. This has created fear among the elderly community,” said Aniket Dessai, whose WhatsApp also got hacked after receiving a fraudulent message from his father whose phone was hacked first.
According to cyber crime officials, who have been responding to these issues, the modus operandi typically involves hackers sending messages that appear to be from known contacts, requesting urgent financial assistance or it could also be a fake company official claiming that the family member has received a parcel and engages them to share more details for confirmation.
The affected seniors are calling for the government to create adequate awareness to address this growing threat. “We need awareness programmes that can help us understand these technical issues better. Many elderly people are falling prey to these scams because we don’t know how to protect ourselves,” said Maria Rodrigues, a 72-year-old victim.
