PUNE: After lottery scams, fake websites and email spoofing frauds, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is now alerting people not to fall prey to job scams, as it has come to the bank’s notice that unscrupulous persons are posing as RBI officials and sending electronic communications through fake email addresses advising job aspirants to appear for tests.
It is not the first time that RBI has been bugged by fraudsters. RBI has been alerting people since over a decade about different ways used by scamsters to cheat people. The frauds include luring people to share their bank details, phishing information through fake emails, lottery scams, fictitious offers by RBI, remittance towards money circulation schemes, money to receive funds from abroad, credit card issued in the name of the RBI, fake mobile applications, fake websites, fake emails and others.
On Tuesday, RBI alerted people about fraudsters trying to scam people through fake email addresses and false letterheads. “RBI clarifies that all recruitment related information, like advertisement, procedure for submitting application, schedule of examination, list of examination centres, admit card, results, etc, is disseminated only through the RBI website https://www.rbi.org.in. The members of public are, therefore, cautioned against entertaining and falling prey to such communication received from other sources on matters related to recruitment in the RBI,” said RBI in a press release.
Speaking on the issue, cyber expert Anil Raj of Cybervault Security Solutions Private Limited said that people should be alert and can check the source of an email to verify whether the source is genuine or fake. “After receiving a mail, a person can check the details from where he has received the mail, including the domain name. If the fraudster has used proxy servers to send an email, then a person will not come to know the domain name. A person can also check details of IP address of the sender through ‘what is my IP’ website,” added Raj.
He said that fraudsters will either phish one’s details and sell it, or they will use the personal data to cheat a person or the fraudsters can ask for advance money like it is been seen in advance fee frauds.
Another cyber expert, Chirayu Mahajan of ANA Cyber Forensics, said that the sender of a fake email will just make minor changes in his email id. “For instance, the fraudster will send a mail from rbl.com and a person would feel that the mail is from RBI. Similarly, when a user clicks on link provided in a fake email, it will route the user to a fake RBI website and people should know the web address of original RBI site so that they are safe,” added Mahajan.
The cyber experts said that people should use a paid email service rather going for a free service. “The fraudsters make fake RBI logos, letterheads and they will use real names of RBI officials. As bank emails are important, people tend to fall prey to such emails and so fraudsters are targeting RBI,” added Mahajan.
