Claim: A phishing website giving free laptops to students
Source: Viral message
Verdict: HOAX
Researched by Sedem Kwasigah
A website promising needy Ghanaian students free laptops is a SCAM.
A message together with a phishing link is being widely circulated on WhatsApp encouraging unsuspecting Ghanaian students to apply for the Students Laptop Scheme 2024, a programme that aims to distribute laptops to more than 960,000 students.
A screenshot of the message and phishing link on WhatsApp
This is not the same as the Ghana Smart Schools project which was recently launched by President Nana Akufo-Addo, seeking to distribute 1.3 million educational tablets to students in Senior High Schools.
This fact-check report seeks to verify the authenticity of the link
Fact-check
Clicking on the link opens a webpage that requests applicants to input information such as their name, age range, education level, and preferred laptop brand.
A screengrab of a webpage after clicking on the link
After inputting the personal bio, applicants are directed to another page where they are asked to confirm their eligibility, names and purpose of application with an instruction to share the link with 15 WhatsApp friends or 5 WhatsApp groups to validate the application.
A screenshot of another webpage
To further verify the link, GhanaFact ran the link through virustotal.com, a security website that scans links and files for malicious codes. The scan resulted in 7 security vendors classifying the link as malicious and phishing.
Using the WHOIS information of the domain – hight.today – indicates that the website was registered on March 30, 2023, updated on August 11, 2023, and is due to expire sometime in 2024. The owners employed the services of privacyguardian.org to hide their original information: a usual modus operandi of malicious websites.
A screenshot of the original information about the phishing link
Additionally, GhanaFact, upon examination of the content printed on the website, has not identified the name of the sponsor organization of the project. Credible sponsorships usually come with information about the name of the sponsor organization, including other significant details.
Verdict
The message and link circulating on WhatsApp is a HOAX.
