Albert Antwi-Boasiako, principal consultant at the e-Crime Bureau, the leading digital forensics, fraud investigations & cyber security firm with a dedicated e-Crime Lab operating in Ghana and other African countries, has advised Ghanaians to be wary when transacting business with mobile money platforms in the country.
According to him, statistics have shown that there was a growing mobile money fraud activities in the country.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako gave warning at a day’s orientation workshop on mobile money fraud for members of Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) in Accra. The workshop was organised by MTN Ghana in collaboration with the JBA.
He was quick to admonish Ghanaians that they should never send mobile money to a third party that they don’t know personally.
He noted that some people get their Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) exposed as a result of downloading or browning on malware infected sites or applications.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako stressed: “When you install malwares on your phone, you are virtually exposing all details on your phone to hackers. They can use your smart device to do whatever you can do yourself, like snapping images, reading or sending messages and even dialing a number from your contacts list. All these can be done at the background without the knowledge of the owner of the phone”.
He therefore advised the public to be extra vigilant in order not to fall prey to these hackers. One of the safest ways to stay secure is for mobile phone users to install anti-virus on their smartphones, Mr Antwi-Boasiako said.
President of the JBA, Suleiman Mustapha noted that the purpose of the workshop was to enable members of the Association to get some update information on the mobile money fraud to enable them educate the public through their various reports.
“ As journalists our responsibility is to broadcast or publish this information to the general public to educate them on the issues”.
Touching on some of the success stories of the JBA to African Eye Report, Mr Mustapha noted that a research undertaken by JBA indicated that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were either not aware or not concerned about the plight of SMEs, but were only interested in collecting levies from them.
“The advocacy by JBA has resulted in positive changes in policy and programmes in some districts,” he stated.
Instructively, the JBA was established out of the GJA’s special two-year project dubbed “Using the Media to Strengthen Business Advocacy”.
The project, co-facilitated by KAB Consult and sponsored by the Business Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund, begun in 2006, under the theme “Using the Media to Promote Small-Scale Business Concerns.”
Under the project, a core team of journalists undertook capacity development in business advocacy to create a multimedia platform to discuss the concerns of business, particularly SMEs.
In Ghana, the SMEs account for 90 per cent of enterprises of the economy, contributing about 60 per cent of employment, and about six per cent to GDP.
African Eye Report
