Hyderabad: Taxmen have always been after your money, but he is legit. Somebody else is also after your hard-earned money and he happens to be a crook. ‘E-filing’ of income-tax returns is the latest in phishing scams authored by these crooks. So rampant is the incidence of late that one out of every 10 mail users have reported receiving emails from fraudsters claiming to be from the ‘Board of Income-Tax’, say Cyber Crime officials.
One of the first things a cyber criminal does is to extract identification and security details of an individual. The mail asks for details of the user’s bank account. A typical deceptive mail begins by telling the individual tax payer that an account audit was conducted on January 4, 2018 and the review revealed that the tax assessee is entitled to a tax refund of Rs (XXXX). The amount differs in subsequent mails ostensibly to give the impression that there was some tax accumulation and reconciliation going on for the year 2017. The mail then directs the user to click on a submit button (given below) to request refund processing and remittance into his/her account. It prompts the user to strictly follow the advice in the mail and punch in the mobile number and share the One-time Password.
Once the submit button is clicked, it asks for selection of a bank and takes the user to the payment option. If the process is completed, the user has lost money — the amount mentioned is debited from his/her account.
Cybercrime SP Ram Mohan said, “Crooks try several ways to extract security data, either by fraud calls or mails. Through the mobile number, the scamsters aim to get bank details and pursue the victims to share the OTP received on their phone. Cyber thieves use e-mails, SMS, voice call, shady websites and even honey traps to extract personal information. If ever a fraud email is returned with details to e-file income tax, the very sensitive account and personal details land in the hands of the wrong people.”
Following several recent fraud attempts, many banks have alerted clients to beware of fraud calls and emails concerning internet money transfers in particular.
