Artisan Renata Aparecida Pires, from Campinas (SP), had her WhatsApp application cloned after clicking on a link sent by SMS with a false invitation to a lecture. With control of the victim's account, the criminals requested bank transfers to her contact list and left a loss of at least R$800.
A new measure from the federal government establishes stricter rules for sending SMS messages and seeks to make it more difficult for criminals who use this channel to carry out scams. Telephone operators will have up to 90 days to implement mechanisms for identifying senders, monitoring and blocking unregistered numbers.
Renata remembers that the approach happened through a phone call. The victim reports that the suspects used the name of a professional she followed on social media. "They informed me that he was an advisor to a real estate agent that I followed at the time. They told me that he was inviting me to give one of his lectures", says the artisan.
After clicking on the link received on her cell phone, Renata lost access to the application. "I called the number that got back to me, I called, they answered. I said, listen, you cloned my cell phone, my WhatsApp. Oh, you dropped it, haha. And they hung up. I made a post warning everyone that no transfer was to be made and it was all very immediate."
Posing as her, the criminals asked friends for money under the pretext of paying an urgent bill, and one person even deposited more than R$800. According to the artisan, the bank took two months to reimburse the contact who made the transfer. "It's a very bad feeling, a feeling of invasion", he says.
Using alarming messages or unmissable promotions is a common tactic. Lawyer Claudia Costa explains that fraudulent approaches usually require immediate action from the user, such as clicking on links to false banking centers or warnings about suspicious purchases.
"There are several types of scams, but they all have a sense of urgency. So, click here or don't miss this chance, dispute a purchase", says Claudia. She highlights that fraud occurs both by invading the device through malicious links and by inducing the victim to carry out financial transactions.
To combat fraud like the one that affected Renata, the federal government published this Wednesday (4), in the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU), new rules for mobile phone operators. The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) will monitor the implementation of the measures, which must be adopted within 90 days.
Among the main changes are:
Consultation of those responsible: creation of a public register to identify companies that send messages using short codes (few-digit numbers that appear as senders, such as "29222").
Message blocking: operators must prevent the delivery of SMS sent via unregistered short codes.
Automatic monitoring: telephone companies must monitor the sending of SMS to identify suspicious campaigns and falsification of the sender's identity.
Fraud tracking: the companies involved must verify the identity of their contractors and collaborate to stop campaigns with signs of fraud.
With the regulation, official messages from large companies will be sent from fixed numbers, facilitating tracking. "The main issue is also the government's tension with this, tension on the part of banks, large companies, and not just transferring responsibility to the consumer, but adopting measures to prevent the scam from continuing", highlights the lawyer.
According to research by the Regional Center for Studies for the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), carried out in August, SMS is among the means most used by scammers to approach victims, present in 71% of cases. The list also includes messaging apps (84%) and calling apps (79%).
