MUSCAT: Bank Muscat, the flagship financial services provider in the Sultanate, as part of its ‘Let’s Do More’ vision and commitment to ensure the highest levels of security for banking transactions, has urged customers to follow secure banking tips frequently communicated through various channels.
Drawing attention to the dangers of identity theft and financial fraud, the bank asked customers to remain alert to identify fraudulent methods such as phishing, smishing, vishing and social engineering in which gullible victims fall prey to financial loss. From time to time, individuals receive calls from fraudsters claiming to be officials from the bank or well-known companies, telling them that they have won prizes offering large sums of money.
To claim the prize, they are asked to divulge personal bank information like debit/credit card numbers, PINs, mBanking user ID, passwords and one time passwords (OTPs). Bank Muscat wishes to alert customers on these scams and advise that they must never entertain calls from people they do not know who claim that they have won prizes in competitions or prize draws they have not participated. Bank Muscat never asks customers for this kind of information over phone. The bank cautioned customers that under no circumstance, they should divulge account, card or secure PIN numbers. Any attempt to do so could make people subject to fraud, the bank said urging customers to be cautious and not to share any personal banking information with anyone on phone, email or social media.
Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and debit/credit card details, for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Phishing is usually done by sending emails that seem to appear to originate from credible sources, the bank
noted.
Of late, fraudsters are targeting to cheat people through Vishing in which scammers contact people over the phone to extract confidential personal information.
Sounding an alarm, the bank said that customers should be able to identify a genuine call and vishing in which financial information can be misused.
Fraudsters employ vishing to make themselves look like genuine callers such as bank officials or officials in authority and deceive customers to divulge confidential personal bank information.
Smishing is another type of fraud that uses mobile phone text messages to lure victims into calling back on a fraudulent phone number,
visiting fraudulent websites or downloading malicious content via phone or web.
Fraudsters send SMS intimating people of winning prize money, lottery and job offers, requesting them to share their card or account credentials.
Unaware, gullible victims follow instructions to visit a website, call a phone number or download malicious content.
Confidential information taken from people is then used to conduct fraudulent transactions from their accounts, causing financial loss.
To protect themselves, customers should never share personal information or financial information via SMS, Whatsapp, phone or email.
They should not follow instructions as mentioned in SMS sent from untrusted source and delete such SMS immediately.
If customers receive any urgent communication asking for personal information, they should ignore such messages.
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