Free cybercrime and online scams helpline goes live in South Africa

“South Africans who have been scammed, hacked, extorted or harassed online now have a free place to turn for help. The Cyber Helpline, a UK charity, has launched a 12-month pilot in South Africa with local social impact organisation MiDO Academy, funded by Amazon Web Services. The service covers a wide range of incidents, including investment and employment scams, phishing, hacked accounts, fake social media profiles, sextortion, identity theft and ransomware. It is confidential and open to anyone in South Africa aged 13 and older – but only to individuals and sole traders, not larger businesses. Victims start with a chatbot on thecyberhelpline.com, which offers immediate step-by-step guidance at any hour. If a case needs more help, it is passed to a human responder.” To be clear, this is an advice line to help explain what happened to a victim, and what they should do. So it will include relevant referrals, and won’t be doing any recoveries. Victims should probably not delay though…