Property market sees rise in spoof messages from purported agents

THE stronger property market in Singapore may have unleashed a new trend - that of text spoofing.

There has been a rise in spoofing cases, in which scammers pose as property agents asking homeowners if they want to rent out their spaces, said analysts.

Cybersecurity provider Group-IB noted that it began seeing more of such property spoof cases since mid-March, though no numbers were available.

He Feixiang, adversary intelligence research lead at Group-IB, said it coincides with recent cybersecurity breaches, including RedMart's user data breach first reported in October 2020.

"It is possible that rogue marketers purchased delivery addresses related to PII (personally identifiable information) from the dark web and picked accounts with condo addresses as business opportunities," Mr He told The Business Times.

In the case of data breach at RedMart, 1.1 million accounts registered with the online grocer had been compromised, earlier reports said.

One common practice, as observed by BT, is scammers claiming to be PropNex agents, and blasting text messages to enquire about rental. PropNex is Singapore's largest property agency, data from Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) showed. The latest available from the CEA website, dated Jan 1, 2021, listed PropNex as having 8,918 agents.

When asked to review three spoofing messages seen by BT, Carolyn Goh, director of corporate communications and marketing at PropNex, said the messages were not sent by PropNex salespersons.

One example of the spoof messages read: "Dear landlord, tenants can begin rental in mid June for two years. Is your whole home for rent? Bernice Propnex".

Mr He and his team tried calling three phone numbers which had previously sent such messages, and found two of them inactive. The remaining number was active, but went unanswered.

BT also responded to one text message asking where the text sender got the number. It did not receive a reply.

Mr He said the best strategy is to avoid contact with the scammers. "Even replying to the scammers could give a useful signal to them, as they would know your number is active," he said.

Kerry Singleton, managing director of cybersecurity at Cisco Asia-Pacific, Japan and China, told BT that phishing attacks and other scams tend to leverage on "hot topics of interest".

Mr He said: "The property industry handles large cash transactions and sensitive PII. Both are very attractive to scammers."

While the messages sent initially do not come with clear call-to-action or attached links, that confirmation and access to a "live" number opens up an opportunity for scammers to eventually access a victim's personal data, credit card information, log-in data and other details, said analysts.

The rise in such phishing texts could be partly driven by the pandemic too, as scammers take advantage of people's fears during crises, added Cisco's Mr Singleton.

Data from Cisco Umbrella stated the number of phishing threats grew 40 per cent last year from the year before. In the first half of last year, banking-related scams jumped more than 20-fold to 898, the cloud security platform noted figures from the Singapore Police. (see amendment note)

If the text is spoofed from overseas, the sender can make the messages appear to come from local phone numbers, noted Jeff Ong, principal cybersecurity consultant at Saas company Horangi.

Industry observers said that not all such messages are scams or phishing attacks; Mr He said that some cases could be instances of "rogue marketing practice", done cheaply.

Singapore's Do Not Call (DNC) Registry lets consumers opt out of marketing messages addressed to their Singapore telephone numbers.

CEA announced on its website last December that property agents are to abide by DNC provisions under the Personal Data Protection Act.

This means agents must check that the telephone number is not registered with the DNC Registry. They should also send out messages with clear and accurate information identifying themselves, as well as provide their contact details; the agent's telephone number should not be concealed when a call is being made, too.

READ MORE:

• New private home sales take a hit in May on the back of heightened measures
• Rents for HDB and condos rose in May
• BT Explains: Why are condo, HDB rents rising?

Amendment note: A previous version of the article said that the baking-related scam figures came from Cisco Umbrella, when in fact the company drew them from the Singapore Police.