Taxpayers duped by cyber fraudsters

Chennai: While taxpayers are busy filing their IT returns, cyber criminals have found new ways to extract bank account details by pretending to be income tax department officials.

Cyber criminals are using fake SMS to trick customers into sharing bank account details, finds Quickheal.

In the messages sent to taxpayers, fraudsters intimate them that they have a certain tax refund and that the amount will be credited to their bank account shortly. The message has a wrong bank account number and asks the customer to send the correct account number to a certain link.

"Note that the message opens on a good note to instantly attract your attention, immediately followed by a wrong bank account number. The message continues to trick into verifying account number if wrong, by clicking the link, ultimately making you an unsuspicious victim of the fraud," said Sanjay Katkar, Joint MD and CTO, QuickHeal Technologies.