Palo Alto Networks warns of travel-related scams to watch out for this Holy Week

Holy Week is one of the peak travel seasons in the Philippines. The Civil Aviation Authority anticipates two million passengers to fly domestically to observe the holiday. With this many prospective Filipinos travelling simultaneously, there is expected to be fierce competition for travel tickets and bookings and good deals through online travel agents and apps. Meanwhile, scammers see this as an opportunity to be exploited, particularly through social engineering and phishing. Attackers target individuals and groups during this time as individuals are focused on family time and religious practice, and organizations have lesser manpower for security. In response, Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, shares insights and solutions to address this increasing cyber risk during Holy Week.

Globe warns of scams targeting OTT’s, postpaid customers

As part of its advocacy to #MakeITSafePH and protect customers from scammers and spammers, Globe cautioned its customers never to give their one-time pin (OTP) -- even when offered a prize or promo -- and immediately report suspicious calls and texts to https://www.globe.com.ph/stop-spam.html.

The company reiterated this reminder amid issues related to over-the-top (OTT) media services like Netflix in the past few months. In this modus operandi, fraudsters sign up to Netflix using a random Globe Postpaid number. They then send an SMS to the number posing as a Globe rep to inform the customer that they have won prizes such as cell phones and motorcycles. The customer is then asked for the OTP generated from signing up. Once the customer sends the OTP, the scammers complete the signup, and the former gets billed for the subscription.

This is a form of “smishing”, wherein attackers send text messages pretending to represent reputable companies to trick a person into revealing their personal information.