An SMS scam is spreading in France copying the tax site. Our colleagues from Numerama alert about this fraudulent device designed to steal the personal and economic data of the victims.
The scam is presented as an SMS from the tax department, particularly well imitated, which states that “[votre] the account is being checked.” The SMS then offers a link service-impot-gouv-info.com, which leads to a website that mimics that of the tax service.
This site then asks for the tax identification number, as well as a password, then personal information. This is a fake, despite the near perfect imitation it presents. However, domain names for institutional government sites never end in “.com”, but always in “.gouv.fr”, where “fr” is the extension indicating that the site is French. Therefore, the presence of the “government” on this bogus link can be confusing and requires great vigilance.
In addition, text messages from official services, such as health insurance or taxes, often the victims of malicious impersonators, will never offer access to a link from an SMS. If in doubt, you should go directly through a web page and check the domain name in question.
data theft
At the end of this hoax, it is most likely a scam aimed at recovering bank identifiers and thus stealing a sum of money from the victims, like most SMS scams that imitate government services. .
Reselling data, which is expensive on the dark web, is also a common practice for online attackers.
To fight against this type of scam, you can report the number to 33 700, a service that centralizes fraudulent numbers. The Pharos platform also allows you to report related scams. Finally, if you have been a victim of this scam and have entered sensitive data, you should contact the tax department.
Source: BFM TV
