Police warned of new scamming techniques over the MSN messaging system, in which victims were forced to close down accounts or change their passwords.
Previous scamming techniques included victims’ accounts being hacked, as well as asking a user to buy points for online games for them, then taking those points and vanishing, police said.
Recently, scammers appeared to have refined their technique, by posing as “victims” and claiming their accounts have been hacked. Another method is asking netizens to click on their blogs to increase their hits. Once netizens click into the site, a Trojan horse virus is downloaded and steals the passwords to their online accounts, police said.
In light of the increasing number of victims among MSN users, the government’s 165 anti-fraud hotline center reminded the public that once their MSN account is hacked, they should immediately report the incident to the nearest police station and fill out an authorization form to stop account activities.
Once the police have confirmed the account, they will contact the anti-fraud hotline, which will in turn forward the case to Microsoft Taiwan.
According to Vincent Shih (施立成), a legal director at Microsoft Taiwan, once the company receives notification of an MSN account hacking case, the account would be frozen within 24 hours, and Microsoft would provide police with the IP address of the computer that hacked into the account so that they can track down the scammer’s location.
Shih said people should be highly alert when browsing the Web and adhere to the principles: “Do not click on unknown sites,” “Do not install unknown programs,” “Do not use the same password for different accounts” and “Be alert when someone asks you to pay on the Web.”
Shih said people who did do not truthfully fill out the required information and are unable to answer the questions about their accounts after they are frozen might not be able to retrieve their accounts.
However, once an account is frozen, the scammers can’t access it either, Shih said.
Internet users who let their Web browser store their passwords are vulnerable to malware that can forward their passwords to scammers, who can then access their accounts at will, Shih said, adding that netizens should change their passwords frequently.
Those who are too lazy to remember too many passwords are often easy prey for computers in the eyes of the scammer, Shih added.
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods