Cyber screamers took about EUR 100 million from the Finns last year. Protection against scams is the responsibility of the consumer, Elisa’s leaders emphasize.
Previously warned of viruses. Now the criminals have moved to scams. Karoliina Vuorenmäki
Trillion euros. That is how much money criminals were cheated last year with security attacks, says Elisa’s Consumers’ Digital Security Business Director Eetu Prieur.
This a worldwide report The amount is three times higher than the turnover of drug trafficking and ten times higher than Finland’s annual budget.
Finns were cheated on more than EUR 100 million last year. The amount grew from the previous year.
“It is not known that this growth will not continue, unfortunately,” Prieur says.
Many of those cheated never get their money back. According to the statistics, the cheated got all their money back in only 4 % of cases. 59 % did not get any money back.
With the help of baby monitoring and surveillance cameras, criminals have succeeded in eavesdropping and smuggling residents, says Eetu Prieur, Business Director of Elisa Consumers’ Digital Safety. Atte Kajova
Mobile certificate
The victims of scams are of all ages. Young people under the age of 35 are also often the subject of scams, although often scams are imagined to face an older generation with other challenges in the digital world. One security risk lies in smartphones.
– It is important now that it is not enough to protect the computer when that life is there on the phone. Phones must also be protected. That’s where those criminals try to get there.
According to Prieur, the best way to avoid loss of money is to use a mobile certificate.
If your bank codes are mistaken for a cheater’s site, the cheater will have access to the badges and access the money of the cheated. Placing a mobile certificate on a scam site does not lead to a loss of money as they cannot sign in to a bank account.
“There are bank IDs for banking, and everything else is worth using a mobile certificate,” Prieur emphasizes.
The whole home is a risk
Home smart devices are also a growing security risk.
All devices connected to the home network are security risks. For example, you can find such smart devices at home: smart TV, iPad, control system, air heat pumps, baby monitor, even coffee maker …
– Do they have passwords? Prieur asks.
If the device does not have a password or the password is default password, the criminal may find out and enter the device. Passing into one device gives you access to the home network and thus to other devices.
Through this, a criminal can acquire information and even listen to, for example, a baby monitor what the house is talking about. The criminal may thus know that the house is empty and a burglary possible.
The devices can also be used as part of denial of service attacks, which clogs the home internet and increases electricity consumption. This can also cause problems if the police come to ask why your home is involved in a criminal denial of service.
Such participation of home appliances in denial of service attacks was discussed in the autumn when extensive denial of service attacks on Nordea. So it is not about theoretical weakness, but about a concrete threat.
In fact, the number of denial of service attacks more than doubled from 2023 to 2024, says Elisa’s Director of Security Teemu Mäkelä.
Intelligent security security protection is challenging, but the most important thing is to protect the home’s internet connection to which other home devices are connected. If you have sufficient protection in your home broadband router, it is harder to penetrate it from the outside.
Call scams have been replaced by SMS and WhatsApp scams, says Teemu Mäkelä, Elisa’s Director of Security. Atte Kajova
Protect
In addition to the use of cheat sites and home appliances, scammers send scam messages and make scam calls. Mäkelä says as an example that Elisa blocked 1.4 million scam texts last year.
Artificial intelligence has also become part of cyber scams. The scammers have already utilized sound -based scams, with the help of artificial intelligence a voice message. Artificial intelligence also provides scam messages for fluent Finnish, so that their cumbersome grammar does not immediately notice the algae background.
Mäkelä and Prieur emphasize that consumers themselves have to take care of digital safety.
Nowadays, children are also taught digital skills so that they can prepare for cyber threats. For children and adolescents, Elisa recommends that a smartphone should not be given to people under 9 years of age, as their online use should also be protected.
On Wednesday, Elisa organized a digital security info. In addition to cyber threats, the event was heard about the current marine cable situation and what the security situation on the network looks like early in the year.