Spoofing

What is it? Spoofing is a technique used to conceal your own identity. The fraudster hides their real number to pretend to be the legitimate sender of a text message or phone call from your bank, for example from a branch office or customer service operator.

• How can I recognize it?
  • Suspicious procedure: the fraudsters ask for personal or bank data, inviting the victim to follow non-standard procedures.
  • Urgent: the fraudsters urge the victims to act immediately, referring to imminent deadlines, and asking them to perform banking transactions.
  • False links: the text message contains links to websites where the actual destination does not match the name of the link. 
  • New sender: if you receive a text message from a new sender with which you have no services active (e.g. if I have an account with bank A and I get a text message from bank B)
• What should I do?
  • Don’t trust only the number on your phone screen
  • Beware of phone calls asking you urgently for personal data or credentials (access codes, PIN numbers or OTP).
  • Do not reply to calls from service desk or customer service operators who you haven’t contacted for support asking to install software on your device remotely.
  • If you receive a suspicious phone call, hang up immediately and contact the sender (the company, entity or bank) via the official channels.
  • Don’t click on any links in the text message that look suspicious, as these could lead to fake websites.