No prescription, no problem. But is it safe to buy cheap medicine from Malaysia?

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One reason that it was less potent than expected and thus “less useful”, said Wang, might have been that it was not kept cool — between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius — “to maintain the stability of the medication”.

“This extends to other medications that require cold storage,” she added, citing insulin as another example of medication that would be less effective if not stored properly. “And that’s one of the risks with online shopping.”

Chia’s item arrived in a normal box, and it turned out that the website he found did have this disclaimer: “We do not offer cold chain delivery for this item.”

But even with physical purchases in stores in Malaysia, buyers from Singapore bear some risks, Wang cautioned.

“These are prescription medicines for a good reason. You do require a doctor to follow up … to make sure that the medicines are appropriate for you,” she said.

“Bypassing the doctor’s follow-up, you’d miss … the monitoring that’s usually required for prescription medicine for its safe use.

“When you get a refill (of) cholesterol-lowering medication, for instance, you don’t really sense whether your cholesterol is high or low. And it’s not possible for you to sort of tell on your own whether it’s working or not.”

Watch this episode of Talking Point here. The programme airs on Channel 5 every Thursday at 9.30pm.

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Every day, half a million malware apps are created for scamming. Who’s behind them?

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HANOI: One hour. That is all the time it takes to build malicious software that can access the camera, messages, calls, storage, microphone, location, contacts — nearly everything — on a victim’s phone.

And cyber threat hunter Ngo Minh Hieu finds more than half a million of such malware apps created every day, in his work for Vietnam’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Vietnam saw a 64 per cent rise in online fraud in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Authority of Information Security.

A growing number of incidents in the last five years are related to malware, said Nguyen Quang Dong, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development.

The flurry of fraudulent activity has landed Vietnam among the world’s top 10 cybercrime hotspots according to the Global Tech Council, the programme Talking Point found as it investigated who might be behind the malware scams that have emerged in Singapore this year.

FORMER SCAMMER BECOMES CYBER THREAT HUNTER

Between January and August, more than 1,400 victims in Singapore lost at least S$20.6 million in total, police said.

The perpetrators linked to malware scams have mostly played the role of money mules, said Ang Hua Huang, assistant superintendent at the newly operationalised anti-scam command centre run by the Singapore Police Force.

There have been teenagers arrested for suspected involvement.

WATCH: Who are the people behind malware scams? (21:58)

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Cannabis-flavoured gummies, ‘CBD’ massages in Thailand: Why Singaporean visitors must beware

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“No one, absolutely no one, is batting an eyelid,” programme host Diana Ser remarked as she walked down a street in Sukhumvit district filled with mobile trucks selling cannabis and related products.

And from the English-language signs and menus in some shops as well as the English-speaking staff, one surmises that “tourists are definitely one of the target audiences”, said Saksith.

Four Twenty Dispensary, for instance, gets Singaporean customers “quite frequently”, said its senior operations manager, Mark Nakayama. “They ask for (cannabis) flowers, but then they also come for edibles and some sort of accessories.”

Kiew Kai Ka restaurant, which uses fresh and dried cannabis leaves in its food, also sees Singaporean patrons, said manager Mike Nuttapong. “They’re curious about how it tastes and maybe the side effects … when they consume our dishes.”

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