News item | 10-10-2023 | 06:00
The central government campaign ‘Don’t let yourself be hacked’ is aimed at recognizing and preventing online crime. A common method of crime is misleading people online. By taking advantage of personal situations and pretending to be someone else, criminals manage to mislead people.
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Anyone can fall for the clever methods of online deception, according to recent research.
“If a criminal were standing in front of you in real life, you might not fall for it so quickly. This is a lot more difficult online. More and more people are victims of online crime. Perpetrators are becoming smarter and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish a real message from a fake one. With this campaign we want to help people recognize online deception more quickly, so that they first check the sender and click away if in doubt.”
said Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius.
Learning needs
About 2.2 million Dutch people were confronted with online crime last year, according to Statistics Netherlands. In addition to the financial damage they suffered as a result, they often also suffered emotional damage. This makes them feel less safe and have less confidence in others.
“Our research shows that Dutch people have a need to learn more about how they can recognize and prevent online scams,”
says Mara Verheijen, one of the authors of the study ‘Digital Skills of the Dutch’, conducted by Centerdata on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.
The new campaign ‘Don’t let yourself be hijacked’ contributes to this.
Responding to the person
How does it work? Criminals often play on a personal situation online to obtain personal information. They pretend to be someone else. Someone who can be trusted, such as a friend or an employee of a store with a great offer. Criminals contact us by email, text message or WhatsApp and play on human character traits such as curiosity, trust, greed, fear and ignorance to strike.
Don’t let yourself be hacked
The multi-year campaign by the Ministry of Justice and Security and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations calls on people to carefully check the sender of online messages and, if in doubt, click or swipe away. On Laatjenietinterneppen.nl people can find more information about how to recognize this type of online deception and what they can do about it.