The Police would like to alert members of the public of a fake Singapore Police Force (SPF) website phishing for confidential information, as shown in the screenshot below.
Scammers made use of a web browser’s full-screen mode to show a Windows 10 desktop image (which will fill up the entire screen) displaying the fake SPF website. As it is an image, victims would not be able to click on the ‘Start’ menu or close/open applications, and would assume that the desktop was indeed locked.
The contents of the fake SPF website alleged that the victim’s web browser had been “blocked due to viewing and dissemination of materials forbidden by (the) law of Singapore”. The victim would be asked to enter his/her credit card details [such as card number, name, expiry date, and Card Verification Value (CVV)], purportedly to pay a fine to unlock the web browser.
Such websites are actually phishing sites in disguise, designed to extract victim’s personal information and banking details from unsuspecting victims, which could result in monetary losses as scammers would use these details to make unauthorised purchases and transactions. The Police does not have access to lock a person’s desktop, and would also like to clarify that the official SPF website is www.police.gov.sg.
Members of public are advised to adopt the following measures if they encounter this fake SPF website:
- Press Alt+Tab to see if it if possible to get back to the normal desktop; or
- Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to open the Task Manager and terminate any web browser processes.
- Refrain from giving out your personal information and bank details such as internet bank account usernames and password, and OTP codes from tokens. Such information are useful to criminals.
If you have information related to such crimes or if you are in doubt, please call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. Please dial ‘999’ if you require urgent Police assistance.
To seek scam-related advice, you may call the anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg . Join the ‘let’s fight scams’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next scam victim.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
28 January 2020 @ 2:00 PM