Police warn Manitoba is seeing an increase in cybercrime

A rise in cybercrime has police warning people to protect their personal information and email accounts.

Officers saw a spike in online fraud leading up to and during the pandemic – a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down.

“It is traditional frauds that have moved into an online environment where the criminal actors have an ever-expandable reach and an exponential number of targets, so it is definitely on the increase,” said Sgt. Trevor Thompson, supervisor of the Winnipeg Police Service’s Financial Crimes Unit. “We do see on a daily basis multiple reports of people that have been victimized in any number of fraudulent schemes.”

Thompson said most fraud now happens online — a trend that was exacerbated by the pandemic as people spent more time on the internet.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has received 29,294 reports of fraud as of Apr. 30 of this year. In 2021, a total of 106,875 reports were made for the entire year.

As of the end of April 2022, people had lost $163.9 million to fraud. A total of $380 million in losses were reported for the entirety of 2021.

Manitoba RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Paul Manaigre said there were 596 cybercrimes, which involved the use of a computer, reported to the Mounties in 2021 compared to 477 incidents in 2020.

“The most common occurrence being reported is fraud with common themes emerging with the use of e-transfers, cryptocurrency investment scams and romance scams,” Manaigre said in an email.

St. Vital resident Robert Pigeau knows when something sounds too good to be true and he said it’s helped him avoid falling victim to fraud.

“The first sign is they want your credit card info or they want your passwords to log in,” Pigeau said. “You never should give that stuff out.”

The 63-year-old has been putting that knowledge to use weeding out and blocking numerous phone calls, emails, texts and Facebook messages he gets from unsolicited sources seeking his personal information.

He knows not to give it out, and warns friends when people attempt to get it to help prevent others from falling victim.

“So I share it around so nobody else will get scammed and I warn them about not to click on the link,” Pigeau said. “It’s pretty sad. They’re trying to take advantage of seniors.”

Thompson said one of the most prevalent cybercrime schemes right now are email intrusions, where fraudsters try to gain access to your email to get into your online banking applications to take your money and to access your social media platforms to facilitate other fraudulent schemes.

He also said ransomware attacks which usually target larger companies or government agencies — where fraudsters encrypt data on a network or a computer and request a payment to decrypt the data — are also quite common.

Pigeau credits his son for helping him stay alert to the threat of fraud.

“But there’s other people, they end up taking all their savings,” Pigeau said. “You hear some pretty hard stories out there.”

According to experts, one of the best ways to protect yourself is to never give out personal information to unsolicited sources and to safeguard your email accounts by changing your passwords frequently and never give anyone remote access to your computer.

Thompson said it’s also important to have a locking mechanism on your cell phone, to help prevent your personal information from being accessed if you lose it.