SINGAPORE: The government is working with technology giants to tackle a new phishing scam that uses fake WhatsApp Web websites, but these platforms have “responded with varying degrees of urgency”, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling on Wednesday (Jan 10).
For example, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) is working with Meta, which owns WhatsApp, to stop further abuse of compromised WhatsApp accounts as soon as they are detected. But Meta has “on some occasions required more time” to recover these compromised accounts, Ms Sun said.
“We intend to work even closer with Meta and to highlight to them that we need them to do more,” she added. “They need to respond more quickly to our requests, to be more effective and efficient in recovering compromised WhatsApp accounts and disabling the service if it is part of a scam.”
The police are also working with online platforms, including Google, to introduce stronger safeguards to mitigate the risk of fraudulent takeover of online messaging accounts, such as through the pre-emptive detection and blocking of URLs linked to phishing websites.