Parents become targets of fraud
Recently, there have been cases of fraud across the country through phone calls claiming that their children had an accident and were being treated at the hospital, asking parents to transfer money urgently.
The first victims were parents of the Vietnam Australia International School in Ho Chi Minh City. According to information from Cho Ray Hospital, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on March 3, the emergency desk at Cho Ray Hospital received 3 parents of the Vietnam Australia International School looking for their children. The parents said they received a notification from a stranger claiming to be a teacher at the school that their child had fallen and suffered a traumatic brain injury and was undergoing urgent surgery. This person asked the parents to transfer money so that the teacher could pay for the child because it was urgent.
After receiving this information, Mr. MTD (42 years old) and Mr. TMH (51 years old), both living in Thu Duc City, transferred tens of millions of dong to the strange account number of the subject. The other person did not transfer the money but went directly to the hospital to find his child. A few days later, this scam was widely used to deceive many parents in Ho Chi Minh City.
For example, on March 6, Ms. NTP (born in 1986), a parent of a child studying at Hoang Dieu School - Tan Phu District, and Ms. LVT (born in 1980), a parent of Luong Dinh Cua School - District 2, each transferred 20 million VND to a strange account number provided by the subject on the phone.
Also on this day, around 10am, the Security Department of Cho Ray Hospital continued to receive 2 more cases, parents of the Canadian International School in District 7 and the Asian School in District 10, who came to report. The subject asked each parent to transfer 200 million VND, of which Ms. D.TMT (born in 1981) transferred 2 times to 2 strange account numbers named Nguyen Duy Thai and Thach Vu Ha, a total of 200 million VND. And Mr. N.D.N (born in 1979), a parent whose child studied at the Canadian International School, was also asked by the subject to transfer money, but Mr. N. did not transfer and went to the hospital to verify the information, only to find out that he had almost been scammed.
It was thought that the incident would stop there because when information about the above scams was continuously updated by the press to widely communicate to the public, especially the cases that were being received and processed by the authorities. However, in the past few days, parents in Hanoi and Da Nang have received scam calls with the same scenario.
According to the feedback of many parents of Chu Van An High School, Hanoi, these parents have continuously received phone calls informing them that their children are being treated at major hospitals such as 108 Military Central Hospital or Viet Duc Friendship Hospital... then, they are asked to transfer money. However, due to their vigilance, many parents have not "fallen into the trap" of the scammers.
Mr. Tran Trung Quan in Nam Tu Liem district said: "There is currently a gap in the security of information about parents and students. If the gap is not closed soon, the risk of criminals taking advantage of it to defraud parents will recur" - Mr. Tran Trung Quan worried.
Speaking to reporters from the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhiep - Principal of Chu Van An High School said that fortunately, the school's parents were alert, so no one has been scammed so far. She affirmed that it is still not known how the personal information of parents and students of the school was leaked. Currently, the school uses student management software, but this is a common software used by many schools and is very strictly managed.
The problem of protecting personal data is waiting to be solved.
The fact that scammers target parents of students is becoming a concern and insecurity. This also shows that protecting personal information is very important in today's life. Because every time personal data is leaked, it will lead to many personal insecurity problems.
Mr. Le Manh Ha - Deputy Chief of Staff of Ho Chi Minh City Police said that students' personal information can be leaked in many different ways such as: security holes, data collected by units, businesses; stores that are leaked, for example when making customer cards at amusement parks, restaurants, foreign language centers... Deputy Chief of Staff of Ho Chi Minh City Police, shared the reason why the information of many students in Ho Chi Minh City was leaked, leading to money transfer fraud cases.
Also related to this, Mr. Ho Tan Minh - Chief of Office of the Departmentof Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City said that the data information of the industry is strictly implemented, recorded through the system so there is no information leakage or leakage. "There are calls stating incorrect information about class names and school names, but parents are too worried about their children and still trust to transfer money. Parents in the school have chat groups to exchange information with each other so it is easy for information to be leaked" , Mr. Minh shared.
Meanwhile, speaking to reporters of the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper, Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc - Former Director of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education and Training said that currently, there are many ways for parents' information to leak out. Currently, schools have a system to upload parents' data, if it leaks out, it will be very dangerous. Currently, schools are using electronic messaging systems, if bad guys can hack them, the leaked information will be very large. In addition, Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc also said that currently, Vietnamese people do not have a high awareness of protecting personal information. Our people are still carefree, do not understand the meaning of keeping personal information confidential, so it is easy for many bad guys to exploit.
According to Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc, on the online community, one should not participate in too many groups, through which a lot of personal information will be revealed. As for the school, the electronic management systems need to be highly secure, not excluding the printing of lists to serve activities is also a way to reveal information. To limit fraud cases, in addition to raising responsibility, Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc said that network operators should develop software to detect and prevent calls with fraudulent content.
Meanwhile, according to the Deputy Head of the Petition Committee (Standing Committee of the National Assembly) - Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong said that the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Information and Communications must have regulations on the protection of personal information data. Because a series of problems have occurred recently, there must be clear regulations on this issue. " Now that information has been leaked, we don't know what to do, this is very dangerous. Therefore, there must be regulations to enhance responsibility in protecting the personal information data of parents and students" - Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong emphasized.
Thus, through discussions with experts, it can be seen that the security of personal information, including information of parents and students, is currently not an easy problem. Because personal data is currently being collected by many units through many channels to serve management and business. The disclosure and leakage of information through many channels is therefore very difficult to control.
Trinh Phuc
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