Malaysian men still falling prey to webcam strip scam

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite repeated warnings by authorities that Nigerian men are posing as beautiful women to entice victims to strip in front of a webcam, people are still falling for the scam.

National cyber security agency CyberSecurity Malaysia said that at least two people fell victim to the scam every week in 2014, with over 121 cases reported to the Cyber999 Help Centre.

The number of victims, most of them men, were on an uptrend, said CyberSecurity Malaysia chef executive officer Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab.

The scam, which is being run by Nigerian syndicates, involves foreign men posing as "beautiful, sexy women" purportedly from the Philippines, Japan or Korea, who contact potential victims on their Facebook accounts.

"The perpetrator will then ask the victim to video chat with 'her' using the Skype application and use attractive words to lure the victim.

"The perpetrator is actually using pre-recorded webcam videos to fake their real identity in conversations online with victims.

"The perpetrator will then record videos of the victim without their knowledge and use it to extort them with threats to make it public on YouTube and other social networking sites, or direct it to the victim's family and friends," said Dr Amirudin.

Suspects would usually demand money, usually in US currency, to be banked into Western Union accounts.

"We have observed an increase in the number of cyber blackmail scam incidents in this first quarter of 2015.

"Between January till March this year, 25 incidents of cyber blackmail scam have been reported to the Cyber999 help centre compared to 21 incidents in Q1 2014.

"More users may fall into victims if proper mitigation measures are not in place," he said.

CyberSecurity urged netizens to be suspicious of unusual interaction on their social media and to configure their Skype accounts to restrict communication with their contact list only by doing the following: Go to > Tools > Options > Privacy > Only Allow IMs, Calls etc from People on my Contact List > SAVE

Victims of the scam can seek help by contacting CyberSecurity at [e-mail] or [e-mail] or calling 1-300-88-2999.