The cases of cyber fraud are increasing day by day, in such a situation it is very important for you to be alert otherwise one wrong click can make you poor. Thousands of cases related to banking or digital payment fraud are registered daily in the cyber cell.
According to media report , in 2021, more than 4.8 thousand cases of online banking fraud were reported across India. Now the target of fraudsters is the customers of HDFC Bank. If you are also a customer of HDFC or any other bank, then this news is for you. Read and be alert.
Although there are many ways through which scammers steal money, but one of the most common methods is Phishing SMS, through which scammers trick people. Especially through phishing bank SMS, fraudsters scare people saying that their bank account has been suspended and update their KYC or PAN by clicking on the link attached to the SMS. However, once a person gets tricked and believes the SMS and clicks on the link, their phone gets hacked and they lose their money.
Phishing SMS fraud is very common and many banks have issued advisories to people not to trust such SMS. Recently, HDFC has also alerted its customers about such fraud after some of its users tagged the bank about a viral HDFC Bank SMS they were receiving on their mobile phones.
One of the phishing SMS shared by a user on Twitter read, “HDFC customer your HDFC net banking will be suspended today please update your PAN card visit the link below.” Another user replied to this tweet and shared an SMS where he was asked to update his KYC. The SMS he received read, “Dear Customer, Your HDFC account will be on hold today, please update your KYC immediately click here”.
Alerting them about the phishing scam, HDFC Bank Care replied to the tweet and wrote, “Hi Sanghamitra, We request you not to respond to unknown numbers asking for PAN card/KYC update or any other banking information Don’t. HDFC Bank will always send messages from its official ID hdfcbk/ hdfc bn and the links to these messages will always be under http://hdfcbk.io.”
In the same Twitter thread, HDFC Bank further wrote, “Domain. Remember, Bank will never ask for PAN details, OTP, UPI, VPA/MPIN, Customer ID & Password, Card Number, ATM PIN & CVV. Please share any Do not share your confidential details with us.! -Anay, Service Manager.”
So what exactly are these phishing SMS links and how can one prevent themselves from falling prey to such banking frauds?
What is Phishing Bank SMS Scam
In typical banking frauds that are related to phishing SMS, scammers send fake messages and ask people for personal information like account details, OTP and identification number.Or they will ask you to click on a link to update your KYC or PAN on the pretext of activating your bank accounts.
However, if someone clicks on such a link and gets tricked by these SMS, the scammers get remote access to their mobile or bank credentials, which they later use to empty your bank account .
In particular, legitimate banks will never ask you to share sensitive credentials or send unsolicited messages. Never respond to a spam SMS or request. Most importantly, never share sensitive information like your account number, card number, OTP, CVV or personal ID.SMS related to PAN card and KYC are most common and are sent to mislead unsuspecting people.
To stay safe from banking frauds, here we have listed some important things that you should always keep in mind…
How to stay safe from phishing bank SMS scams:
– Never share personal information like OTP, bank details, mobile number or others on SMS or unwanted calls.
Always have strong passwords for your UPI, Internet banking and even mobile phones. Also keep changing your password regularly.
– Always verify the sender before taking any action on any SMS request. In case of bank alerts, contact the bank manager or inform such SMS.
Enable two-factor authentication for online banking. Therefore, every time you access your account you will need to enter your password and OTP. To be safe, you can even set your biometrics as a second password, like a fingerprint.
– As we have shared above SMS you can see that SMS contains an unsecured link and even the English language is not good. Always check such details and delete the message if you have received it.
