Nieuwsbericht08-03-2021 | 15:59

Intensive collaboration with both companies and investigative services in the fight against the so-called Tech Support Scam is yielding good results. The Tech Support Scam, also known as helpdesk fraud, is a form of cybercrime which claimed a lot of victims in countries such as the Netherlands a few years ago. With this form of fraud, a victim is approached out of the blue by somebody or receives a message from a phony IT or software company helpdesk. The objective is always money: to steal it or convince the victim to make payments.

Results

During the project to curb the Tech Support Scam, now known internationally as ‘The Rotterdam Initiative’, various companies tackled their processes to make their software more secure against misuse; bitcoin companies made it more difficult to buy with stolen money; and the police made it possible to file a report online. Banks made it more difficult to transfer large sums of money.

All these measures, and the special attention paid to the phenomenon, have in any case put a stop to the rise of the Tech Support Scam. Total losses fell by 59 percent compared to 2017, and the number of victims stabilised. In 2017, the estimated loss came to around 6 million euros. Incidentally, it seems that since mid-2020 the number of victims has been rising again. “It will always be an arms race”, says Jacqueline Bonnes, Rotterdam Public Prosecutor for Cybercrime. “If you get a call from a help desk out of the blue, then all alarm bells should start ringing. You are then in danger of becoming a victim of the Tech Support Scam.”

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Tech Support Scam

With the Tech Support Scam, a victim usually gets a call for no reason from somebody who poses as a help desk employee. Another occurrence is a pop-up on the screen or an incorrect phone number when somebody is looking for a help desk, and ends up on a fake website. These fraudulent search results end up high on the list, so that a mistake is easily made. In return for payment, the so-called problem can then be solved. Next, the computer is taken over remotely and malicious software is installed. If money is then transferred, the amount is increased remotely. This form of fraud can be prevented by hanging up the phone immediately, by not reacting to a pop-up, and if you contact a help desk: you’d do well to check that the number is correct. You can do this via websites such as https://www.fraudehelp desk.nl/campagnes/campagne-nephelp desks/#Bedrijven.

Start of the Rotterdam Initiative

Together with the police, the Prosecution Service in Rotterdam started the project in 2017, after it had been established that the fraud, also known as help desk fraud, had become increasingly prevalent in the Netherlands. Various national and international as well as public and private parties soon joined the project, for example the German company TeamViewer, Microsoft Corporation, VodafoneZiggo, MoneyGram, the Dutch Association of Bitcoin Companies, and the Dutch banks and the Dutch Payments Association. The most important goal was to curb and disrupt this form of fraud. Prosecution is tricky because of the fact that the call centres are often located abroad.

The project has received a great deal of attention from other countries, because even though this form of fraud is hard to eliminate altogether, the collaboration has led to the partners having access to more information, being able to get in touch with one another more quickly, and being able to respond better to new trends.

The network will continue to exist, which is important in the fight against other forms of cybercrime. The Prosecution Service and the police have farmed these out to the various public prosecutor's offices and units. Rotterdam for example has been assigned the Tech Support Scam; The Hague has the CEO/BEC fraud; and Oost-Nederland has the WhatsApp fraud. By concentrating the fight against one particular form of cybercrime at one location, expertise can be built up, and in collaboration with investigative services and the business sector, new methods can be developed to tackle a phenomenon.