The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) yesterday released a list of the top five companies most susceptible to hackers, warning the public to beware of scams using personal information obtained from the businesses.
Gourmet buffet operator Feast Together, World Gym, Caco Clothing, LiTV and Century Asia Theater were the companies most at risk in the first quarter, the bureau said in a statement.
Canceling payment plans is the most common scam method, it said.
Photo: Lin Chia-tung, Taipei Times
Hackers access systems or commissioned company data archives to steal names, phone numbers, expense information and payment methods, then use the information to scam people into entering their banking information, the bureau said.
Victims are often told that a clerk typed in the wrong membership information or accidentally registered customers as retailers, it said.
They are then asked to phone someone pretending to be a bank teller, who asks them to make a transfer or buy online game credits for an account belonging to the scammers, the bureau said.
In the first quarter, there were 59 reports of people being scammed by hackers impersonating Feast Together staffers, 35 involving World Gym, 16 involving Caco Clothing, 12 involving LiTV and 11 involving Century Asia Theater, it said.
The bureau said it issues a weekly notice to vendors who are linked to such cases more than five times and are suspected of having their customer information leaked, adding that it recommends they put warnings on their Web sites.
The bureau also said it makes periodical announcements using its 165 anti-scam hotline and affiliate channels to warn consumers which businesses are being targeted by scammers.
The bureau also reported an increase in e-commerce platform scams, saying hackers contact buyers posing as sellers and tell them that their purchase did not go through.
Victims are given links, QR codes or Line IDs that purportedly connect them to banking personnel who “handle the problem,” it said.
Additional reporting by Chiu Chun-fu
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS