The Singapore Police Force (SPF) released an advisory warning about a phishing site that’s spoofing the Force’s website, Channel News Asia reports. The bogus website informs the user that their computer has been locked “due to viewing and dissemination of materials forbidden by law of Singapore,” for the most part pornographic content of an extreme nature.

The site tells users that they need to pay a fine of S$1,500 (about US$1,000) with either VISA or MasterCard within six hours, or else they’ll be subject to criminal prosecution.

The site uses a tactic we’ve covered recently, in which the browser goes into full-screen mode to trick the user into thinking their screen has frozen. The site uses an image that mimics a Windows 10 desktop background with the browser and website in the center of the screen. As a result, the user may think their screen has frozen, while they’re actually looking at a full-screen image.

“Such websites are actually phishing sites in disguise, designed to extract 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 said.

The police added that they’ve received five reports of people falling for this scam since January 2020, with victims losing at least S$22,700 (approximately US$16,291).

The advisory says users can press Alt+Tab to try to return to the desktop. If this doesn’t work, they can hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up the task manager and stop the web browser processes.

Even if users don’t remember these shortcuts offhand, the most important defense is knowing that it’s a scam so they can ask for help. The scammers in this case used some well-known social engineering techniques, such as frightening language and the imposition of a deadline. New-school security awareness training can educate your employees about common scare tactics used by scammers.

Channel News Asia has the story: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/phishing-website-scam-fake-police-spf-singapore-12480726

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The original article can be found here:

https://blog.knowbe4.com/bogus-singapore-police-site-serves-as-a-watering-hole