Since the pandemic, consumers are more likely to engage with brands through texts and emails, and this has made scamming much easier.
That's the warning from Newstalk Tech Correspondent Jess Kelly, who was speaking to Moncrieff after research from telecoms regulator ComReg revealed that text and call scams are costing consumers €300 million a year.
According to ComReg, 365,000 cases of fraudulent scams were recorded last year, averaging 1,000 a day.
A rise in paperless banking and online shopping has led to the rapid development of scamming, Jess told the show.
"If you are an online scammer, there's never been a better time to be in that industry than right now," she said.
"Everyone has a heightened awareness of communications from brands – it's not abnormal for me to get a text from a store saying, 'We've got a 20% sale'.
"If that same store, in that same thread on my phone, pops up saying, 'You've been selected for a €5000 voucher, give me your bank details and we'll transfer it to you'... you can understand how and why so many people do fall for these things."
Irish numbers
Jess said scammers now use Irish phone numbers to appear more legitimate.
"They can use number cloning software," she said. "Also, it's not that difficult to get your paws on an Irish number."
"This is part of luring people in – the sense of security."
The way scammers typically acquire phone numbers is through ransomware attacks, in which personal data is leaked.
"That big, huge database with all of our phone numbers, our addresses, our Eircodes, gets put onto the dark web, and it goes to the highest bidder," Jess said.
"There's a brilliant website called haveIbeenpwned.com – go to that website and put in your email address, it will be able to tell you if your email address has ever been compromised in a data leak."
Website cloning
Jess said one of the biggest threats to data security is developments in website cloning – which she nearly fell for herself after trying to make purchases from a Dunnes' online store that was later revealed to be a clone.
"Every element of it looked legitimate and it was only when I clicked on the URL bar that I copped that it was a scam website," she said.
"It's the same where you get a text from your bank ... it is legitimate communication. What's happening now, is scammers can send you a text that appears in that same thread because they can clone the number.
"There'll be a link in that and if you click through to the link, it'll bring you to a cloned version of the bank's website.
"They are putting a huge amount of effort in now to clone these websites to lure you in, to get access to data from the dark web, to target customers - and people are falling for it."
Response
Jess said victims of these scams should always inform Gardaí.
"It's only when people go forward that they can identify trends," she said.
Jess called for mobile operators to investigate phone numbers that are issuing large numbers of calls and texts in short periods of time.
"Sending out messages in the numbers that the scammers would have to be doing must be a red flag somewhere on some switchboard," she said.
"I would question and wonder if it will be possible to put a block or to identify or to track down at that source."
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