SINGAPORE: The police on Tuesday (Apr 30) warned of a new scam variant where victims’ WhatsApp accounts were compromised when they clicked on fake job listings on Facebook.
“Victims would come across attractive job listings on Facebook and contact the WhatsApp contact number provided,” read the news release.
Police added that the victims would then be instructed to download an Android Package Kit (APK) file via WhatsApp “for the purpose of obtaining their personal particulars”.
“Unknown to the victims, the APK file contains malware that would allow the scammers to extract data from their mobile phones,” said the police.
After the victims had downloaded and installed the malware, they would notice that their phone screen would switch off, or they would lose control of their mobile phones.
When the victims eventually regained control of their phones, they would notice that they were unable to access their WhatsApp accounts.
In some cases, their WhatsApp application was deleted from their mobile phones, said police.
The victims subsequently realised that their WhatsApp accounts were compromised when their contacts alerted them to messages purportedly by the victims asking for loans.
