Vietnamese banks warn of fraudulent apps and weak passwords

Vietnamese financial institutions, including KienlongBank and ABBank, have issued warnings regarding fraudulent mobile applications designed to impersonate official banking services. KienlongBank identified the “KBAnhanh/KBA Nhanh” app as a malicious tool that misleads users into providing facial recognition data and citizen identity cards (CCCD) for high-interest loans. Similarly, ABBank warned against an app named “AB tài chính” on the App Store, which uses the bank’s branding to promote unauthorized loans.

In addition to fraudulent apps, security authorities and the Ministry of Public Security are advising citizens to strengthen password security. Experts warn against using easily guessable information such as birthdays, phone numbers, ID numbers, or sequential digits like “123456”. Authorities emphasize that criminals often use social media data to guess these credentials and urge users to never share login names, passwords, OTP codes, or biometric data with third parties.