SINGAPORE – Something as seemingly harmless as a hard copy of a phone bill can be used by scammers to con their victims.
This is because it contains the full names, addresses and contact numbers of those being targeted, said Mr Willis Lim, director of the National Cyber Threat Analysis Centre, the research division of the Cyber Security Agency that oversees Singapore’s cyber security strategy.
Telling the story of his mother throwing his phone bill into the dustbin without omitting sensitive information, Mr Lim noted how documents poorly disposed of are one of three ways scammers find victims to target.
Mr Lim was speaking to The Straits Times on the fifth episode of the Stop Scams podcast, which will be broadcast on Wednesday (May 25).
The Stop Scams podcast is a series by ST to raise greater public awareness of the modern scourge of scams. In Singapore, more than $1 billion has been lost by scam victims since 2016.
During the episode, Mr Lim said that the two other sources of personal data are data breaches – the unauthorised release of someone’s personal details – and personal information that scammers obtain online.
Mr Lim said: “The more information a scammer has about an individual, the more convincing their scam will be.
“When they combine pieces of information about you and they can derive this information from everywhere, including what you post on social media online, they will have a fairly good idea of (who) you are and what platforms to use to…
