DNSC warns against fraudulent phone calls, which claim to be from public institutions

The National Directorate of Cyber Security (DNS) warns of the continuation of a campaign of "spoofed" phone calls in which the attackers present themselves as employees of public institutions or authorities. According to the institution: "The attackers contact the victims using a phone number that appears to be associated with a public institution. In reality, the displayed number is not the real one, but is forged through a technique called spoofing. This involves the use of Voice over IP technology ( VoIP) to mask the caller's real number by exploiting the victim's contact information. For this reason, such calls cannot be blocked directly by telecom service providers. There are online tools that facilitate such attacks, some offered against cost. However, attackers can create their own tools with limited resources, hiding their real number and displaying a fake one to gain the victim's trust." According to the cited source, the attack begins with a call from a person claiming to work for an institution or authority, without giving a specific name. The attackers use phone numbers apparently associated with real institutions, including those of the General Police Inspectorates. During the call, they claim to help the victim recover lost money and ask for sensitive personal information, such as full name, IBAN or other bank details. In reality, these are not employees of the institution, but criminals who try to obtain the victim's personal data in order to use them for fraudulent purposes, the institution states. In context, the DNSC reminds that an authority will never request the recovery of funds by phone and will not ask for sensitive information such as personal or bank data: "Verify the authenticity of calls from official institutions through a separate communication channel, especially if you are asked for personal data hang up and call the number back to verify if there is a legitimate initiative behind the call.report such calls to the real institution to draw attention to the new fraud methods, contact immediately the bank and, in case you were the victim of a fraud, file a complaint with the authorities". DNSC emphasizes the importance of spreading these warnings to prevent other people from becoming victims of this type of fraud.