The Judiciary Police (PJ) urged the public in a statement yesterday not to click on any unknown links, so as to avoid their communication software account being stolen.
According to the statement, the Judiciary Police have lately discovered that members of the public were induced to click on the links sent with a text message to access a phishing website with contents and layout very similar to that of an official website by claiming that “their communication software account was restricted due to violation of the usage policy”.
Phishing is a fraudulent practice in which an attacker masquerades as a reputable entity or person in an email or other form of communication, according to TechTarget, which noted that attackers commonly use phishing emails to distribute malicious links or attachments that can extract login credentials, account numbers and other personal information from victims.
The statement noted that such text messages with an unknown link were sent randomly to the public.
The statement underlined that once members of the public enter information such as account numbers and verification codes into the website, they will lose their access to the account of the relevant communication software.
In view of the fact that some criminals, in recent years, have used stolen communication software accounts to defraud their “friends” in the account, causing financial losses to their victims, the Judiciary Police urged the public to always stay vigilant against any scams, adding that they should not click on any unknown links sent with a text message, while always verifying the authenticity of the text message content through official channels, and paying more attention to whether the embedded link is completely consistent with the official website.
Members of the public should never provide personal information such as their account details and verification code, the statement underlined.
Those who suspect that they have been victims of a scam should immediately call the PJ anti-scam hotline on 88007777 or the crime report hotline on 993, the statement stressed.
