CYSCOE and Iași Police: online fraud awareness

Event report, September 2024.

Alexandru Angheluș, President of the Cyber Security Cluster of Excellence (CYSCOE) and CEO of ProDefence, joined Chief Police Inspector Florin Ionuț Zaborilă, head of the Cybercrime Investigation Unit of the Iași County Police Inspectorate, in a press conference on the growing wave of online fraud affecting Romanian citizens. The message: most attacks start with manipulation, and a short pause to verify prevents most losses.

Key points

Phishing remains the main entry point for online fraud.
“Money recovery” schemes target people who have already been defrauded.
Social engineering exploits trust and low digital literacy.
Two-factor authentication and verification before acting stop most attacks.

Threats discussed

Online fraud and phishing

Criminals use messages that look legitimate to trick people into giving away personal and financial data.

“Money recovery” fraud

An emerging tactic: victims are promised help to recover lost money, then fall into a second scam run by the same or affiliated criminals. Legitimate institutions do not ask victims for fees to recover funds.

Social engineering

Attackers manipulate trust, urgency and lack of digital experience to break into accounts and systems.

Advice for citizens

enable two-factor authentication on email, banking and social media accounts;
pause and verify before clicking, paying or sharing data;
treat cyber education as a form of prevention;
follow alerts from the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) and contact DNSC when you notice suspicious activity;
use the resources published by ProDefence and Cyber AID on recognising fraud and phishing.

Public-private collaboration

Alexandru Angheluș stressed that cooperation between public institutions and the private sector is essential against cybercrime: only joint action builds a digital space that is secure, resilient and trusted. CYSCOE thanks the institutions involved and TVR Iași for spreading the message.

Full interview and footage: youtu.be/PO4k1iqoCmI.

If you have been defrauded

Report the case to the police and to your bank immediately. For documenting what happened, ProDefence offers analysis of electronic fraud and suspicious files and support in cybercrime cases.