Tips on how to protect yourself from potential online scams that they pretend to be bank employeesemptying accounts in a few minutes, as was done in the case of the operation in Volos, said the retired Lieutenant General, former Director of the Electronic Crime Prosecution Directorate, Mr. George Papaprodromou.

If they call us from a bank, “we cut off communication and we take the initiative to contact the banknot with the number they indicate to us, but with the center that we know in advance, from the official page, the customer service call center which many times can have a reasonable delay” said Mr. Papaprodromou speaking to ERT.

The bank never asks for passwords

“Before the fraudsters approach us either by phone or by sending us messages, what they attempt at the first stage is to capture our data. The most common way is usually with the sending messages that come to us, that contain links that refer or redirect us to pages that resemble organizations. Example, AADE, in cases of refund of taxes or various others, heating allowance or anything else and other organizations or our bank itself. We’re supposed to click on the link and suddenly a page pops up asking us to confirm our details, asking them to codeswhich the bank never does. A recent announcement by the Union of Greek Banks points out this fact, that the bank never asks us in this way” emphasized Mr. Papaprodromou.

These criminals are using technology to do harm, he said.

With the help of artificial intelligence, scams are becoming more and more perfected, making it very difficult for even the most suspicious person to tell that it is a scam.

“Already last year the case was recorded, if I’m not mistaken in Hong Kong, in an Asian region after all, where with the use of artificial intelligence the amount of damage was about 25 million dollars, something unprecedented. He presented himself in a virtual meeting and imagine that the employee had the idea that he was talking to the CEO of the company,” added Mr. Papaprodromou.

“Once we mentioned artificial intelligence, organizations, financiers, etc. could also use the technology and I think to a large extent they use it to anticipate things that are happening, you understand, to interrupt and block such processes. I think it’s a fight, I would say many times, unequal, because cybercriminals move without bureaucratic procedures” added the former Director of the Electronic Crime Prosecution Directorate.