"Don't get scammed!": Malaysians smart but scammers smarter
Despite rising awareness and tighter security measures, fear and urgency remain potent weapons in the fraudster's arsenal, warns the banking industry.
In its third annual Scam Awareness Survey, the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) and the Association of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM) revealed a growing wave of public awareness but also underscored that scammers are evolving just as fast.
Commissioned by the banking sector and conducted by Rakuten Insight between March and April 2025, the survey polled 1,000 Malaysians. The good news: Malaysians are more alert than ever. The bad news: scammers are still exploiting psychological pressure to deceive victims.
Among the key findings, 92 per cent of respondents now recognise the dangers of installing unsolicited APK files – a common malware delivery tactic – and 85 per cent can spot a fake SMS.
Additionally, 79 per cent avoid clicking links in SMS or emails claiming to be from banks, 82 per cent say they would act fast and call their bank's 24/7 hotline, while 77 per cent know how to freeze or disable their card via online/mobile banking.
Much of this progress is credited to the #JanganKenaScam campaign, launched in 2023, and widespread efforts by banks to push scam alerts through apps and push notifications. Over 70 per cent of respondents said they received scam warnings directly via their bank's mobile apps, now seen as one of the most trusted sources for real-time alerts.
But while Malaysians are getting smarter, the survey shows scammers are still getting through by targeting emotions.
Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli, chairman of ABM, said that the #JanganKenaScam campaign has played a key role in improving public awareness and emphasised the need to move beyond education and towards behavioural readiness.
"We are seeing a positive shift in public awareness and trust, but we also recognise that scammers exploit fear and urgency to bypass rational thinking," he said.
"From the survey, we saw that 71 per cent of respondents feared losing money if scammers' instructions were not followed as the primary factor in scam cases."
Banks step up the fight
It's not just awareness campaigns; Malaysia's banks are implementing aggressive anti-scam measures across the board. The five key industry-wide protections include replacing SMS OTPs with more secure authentication for online banking, stricter fraud detection rules to block suspicious transactions in real time, cooling-off periods for new device registrations and online banking enrolments, limiting authentication apps to a single mobile device per account holder, and 24/7 hotlines for immediate scam reporting and response.
These systems are designed to intercept fraud attempts before money is lost, and they're making an impact. Some 76 per cent of Malaysians said they're satisfied with their banks' efforts to protect them from scams – a 13 per cent jump from the previous year's survey – while 3 in 5 found their banks helpful after falling victim to a scam, showing improvement in post-incident support.
In addition, 70 per cent now actively share scam alerts with family and friends, especially via WhatsApp, creating a ripple effect of community protection.
Scammers may be more sophisticated than ever, but so are the countermeasures.
Social media remains the top channel for scam alerts, with 52 per cent discovering fraud awareness content via platforms like Facebook and Instagram. But public education campaigns and traditional media are also playing a vital role, reaching 3 in 5 Malaysians, according to the survey.
The next frontier isn't just information – it's instinct.
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