HOW DOES THIS HACKING SCAM WORK?
Email hackers are infiltrating the email accounts of overseas suppliers – particularly free email accounts like Hotmail and Yahoo – and sending fake emails to their INDIA customers. These emails, which tend to target INDIA importers who have an existing relationship with the overseas supplier, ask the customer to pay their deposit for goods into a different bank account than usual.
In some cases where the scam has been successful, the importer believed they had checked with their overseas supplier to ensure the request was genuine. But they used the contact details listed in the email to do so - and these contact details were also fake.
HOW CAN YOU AVOID BEING SCAMS?
The main rule to remember with any financial transaction conducted online is to remain aware and suspicious. Even if you’ve dealt with your overseas supplier for a long time, you shouldn’t be hesitant about being overly cautious.
HOW CAN YOU AVOID BEING SCAMS?
The following are the few guidelines for making sure you don’t become a victim of this dangerous hacking scam:
- Be suspicious of any requests to change normal payment procedures, whether they appear genuine or not.
- Adopt a thumb rule, when ever there is a change in the bank account follow point no. 5.
- Always double-check that any such request is genuine before proceeding.
- Never hit ‘reply’ to an email regarding financial or contractual matters, because the email may have been spoofed or redirected to a different email id, which looks very similar to your customers email id.
- Don’t use the phone or fax details from the email signature either. Use the contact details stored in your address book.
- It is always advised to phone a known contact within the company you’re dealing with to verify the request.
- Be particularly suspicious of free email accounts like Hotmail and Yahoo, and never take anything as fact when it comes from one of these email addresses – always double check.
Source : www.cyberpolicebangalore.nic.in
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