Hyderabad: Cybercriminals are currently impersonating the transport department, sending spurious links for victims to access their pending fines to gain access to their credentials and steal money, the police said.
“If you receive links for traffic challans, don’t click on them. On clicking the links for paying pending challans, it might give fraudsters access to your bank accounts and credentials, resulting in transferring funds from your accounts,” a cyber expert said.
Hyderabad DCP (Traffic I) Rahul Hegde said it is usually the traffic wing that sends reminders to people to clear pending challans. “Even if they receive reminders from other sources, they can always verify by first going to the official website to clear traffic challans. There, you can know your pending challans and also make payment securely,” he said.
Cybercrime police cautioned the public against clicking on such links from unknown sources. Confirming that there is no complaint related to this type of fraud so far in Telangana, cops said that it could be due to a relatively lower amount being lost in the fraud.
“However smaller the amount is, people can report the loss. Even if there is no loss, people can report such malicious messages and links, so that others can be saved from the fraud,” a cybercrime official said.
