Saudi ‘hackers’ help fight cyber criminals

A group of citizens named “Hackers of Saudi Arabia” is helping to fight cyber criminals in the country.
Muhammed Al-Sare’ey, head of the team of seven specialists, said that they have succeeded in tackling over 500 cases of blackmail and retrieved several hacked accounts on Instagram and Twitter.
The team also works with various government agencies. Al-Sare’ey said that Saudis use social media without being aware of the crooks offering fake jobs, or getting information to gain access to their bank accounts.
Faisal Al-Ansari, who works for the team, said that criminals set up Twitter accounts that appear legitimate to carry out their operations. In one incident, a person claimed to have jobs available. His victims were mostly women whom he duped to reveal their bank account numbers, which he then robbed.
He said that a criminal stole SR100,000 from a bank account recently. The team tracked him down and discovered that he had been operating for a while on the Internet.
Al-Ansari said the team also managed to track down a criminal who was posing as a matchmaker, who had defrauded men and women out of various sums. He would request SR500 initially and their bank account information.
He said people should be careful to whom they send their resumes by e-mail because this information can be used to gain personal information. The team has created a hashtag named #Catching_Fraud.