Cyber fraud against customers of eight Iranian banks; expert: The aim of the plan is to protect "military dominance over the country's internet"
The deputy social director of FATA, the Information Production and Exchange Space Unit of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Police Force, says that fake apps from eight Iranian banks have been removed from Google Play.
Mehdi Saremifar, a science and technology journalist, told VOA about this matter that the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran should be aiming to prevent fraud when talking about "security", but this is not the case and "we see that in the security plan, the military is seeking to dominate the country's internet."
According to ISNA's report on Monday, November 14, Ramin Pashaei, deputy head of the FATA Police Department, said that this was a new attempt by "cybercriminals" to abuse citizens' bank accounts in "Sadarat, Keshavarzi, Sepah, and five other banks," which the police force center became aware of through "public reports."
He recommended that citizens use "domestic app stores" to "install financial and banking software" and enter the bank's website address "in full" when installing it.
Mehdi Saremifar, a journalist and expert in the field of science and technology, said in an interview with the Persian service of the Voice of America that unfortunately there are no accurate statistics on the extent of this type of internet theft because Iranian authorities do not report it accurately.
Saremifar explains that Iran does not have serious interactions with companies like Google, saying that this is due to the special situation that the Islamic Republic has created for the people of Iran. If the situation were normal, in a normal country, issues related to people's personal security would have similar channels to the world for checking, and they would use normal methods like other countries in the world to ensure the security of Iranian users.
According to this technology expert, the current situation has allowed "anyone to download the bank logo in high quality, create an app, and put it on the Google Play Store, and Google has no way to double-check whether it is real or fake, so these apps are published and mislead people."
He adds: "Feta police are telling people to use similar domestic services instead of secure tools like the Google Play Store so that authorities can prevent scams."
Mr. Saremifar called the Iranian people a "helpless group" who face the risk of authorities accessing "their image galleries or other mobile information" when using domestic applications, and "if they go to foreign applications like the Google Play Store, they will face fraud."
Saremifar emphasizes that "the one who suffers losses and is not protected is the Iranian user."
However, he considers using tools like the Google Play Store to be a more secure method for users than using domestic Iranian services, provided that they follow verification methods such as looking closely at the appearance of the applications, checking the manufacturer, reading the information under the store, and reading other users' comments to ensure that they are not fake.
Source: Voice of America
