‘Scam-demic’

It is without a doubt there has been a deluge of cybercrimes and other illegal activities perpetrated through the internet highway following the COVID-19 pandemic period. Law enforcement authorities noted the upsurge of cyber scams and other criminal activities committed, especially related to electronic commerce (e-commerce), or selling via online which became popular as the safe mode of purchases during the pandemic.

Thus, the public fears these cybercrimes are turning into “scam-demic” proportion.

Art Samaniego, co-founder of ScamWatch Pilipinas, an advocacy and volunteer watchdog group, actually coined “scam-demic” during our conversations at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday. Samaniego’s play on words is not exactly surprising because he is the Tech Section editor of The Manila Bulletin. Likened to the pandemic, Samaniego warned the phishing, smishing, and quishing technology-driven crimes are spreading not only here in our country but also elsewhere around the world.

Both cyber security experts – Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) official spokesperson Capt. Michelle Sabino and Angel Redoble, chief information security officer of PLDT/Smart Telecom – who also joined us in our weekly breakfast news forum confirmed the growing “scam-demic” fears.

Being one of the two giant telecommunications companies (telcos), we also invited an official representative from Globe Telecom to join our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum but they declined. Nonetheless, our cyber technology resource speakers discussed at length the troubling increase in cyber scams and other online frauds and crimes.

Both Sabino and Redoble concurred that cyber scams got a big boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.