Bethanie residents have been equipped with advice and knowledge on how to protect themselves against cybercriminals.

This follows a recent Salt Essential IT and the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology's nationwide cybercrime awareness campaign.

The awareness session focused on educating and informing the public on how cybercriminals impersonate banks, companies, or family members to gain victims' trust and steal their personal and banking information.

Surveys and questionnaires that promise cash or vouchers for personal and banking information are common scams.

A Junior empowerment specialist at Salt Essential IT, Ernst Khachab explained.

“Anything that has to do with money, winning something, or even free Wi-Fi that we get at cafes, airports, and places like that—nothing is free in life. We must always be careful when we come across such things; we should not click on them, and we should not enter our personal information.”

Residents were also advised to avoid using personal information in passwords and create passwords, using their mother tongue as an option to make them harder for cybercriminals to crack.

“If we use passwords in our mother tongue, I am not saying you must, but you can use your mother tongue to create passwords. Having passwords in our mother tongue is better because it makes it more difficult for cybercriminals to crack.”

Attendees shared their personal experiences of cybercrime, including Berseba Constituency Councillor Reymond Jossop.

“There was a day when my colleague received an urgent call telling him to provide his bank details, preferably from FNB, Standard Bank, and Bank Windhoek, as he won money. We were excited because we were a bit broke at the time. We rushed to get his card without questioning how he has won. Because we took too long, the caller got frustrated and gave up. Our delay actually saved us.”