Phishing attempts: BSI warns of criminals who want to “pay out energy flat rates”.
The Federal Office for Information Security has discovered a new scam. As reported on Twitter, beware of phishing attempts by criminals who take advantage of skyrocketing energy prices to obtain personal information.
As is well known, sharply increased energy prices await the German population in autumn and winter of this year, which will be clearly felt. The higher energy costs are getting to the kidneys of bakeries in particular, since ovens and cooling systems are particularly energy-intensive. Apparently, however, criminals are also taking advantage of the tense situation of the “energy cost explosion” and are currently sending phishing e-mails in order to obtain personal data.
BSI warns of fraudsters who lure with an “energy flat rate”.
The Federal Office for Information Security, BSI for short, drew attention to this on Twitter. According to the Federal Office, fraudsters send e-mails with subject lines that either “Get your energy flat rate now!”, “We’ll transfer the energy flat rate” or “Ready for your energy bonus?” ring. As an example, the BSI provides a photo of such an email that looks deceptively real and appears to have come from the Sparkasse. The introduction to the phishing email reads:
“In order to mitigate the effects of the increased energy prices on consumers, a lump sum of 300 euros will be paid out to all employed persons in September. This is a decision by the federal government and is part of the 2022 relief package, which will cushion the explosion in energy costs caused by the Ukraine war target.”
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This is followed by an explanation of who can receive such an energy allowance. On the one hand, the taxpayer should be with income from profit income types and, on the other hand, employees in tax brackets one to five as well as marginal part-time employees.
Victims of the criminals are then supposed to enter the same data on the “Sparkassenhomepage” as confirmation that they have already entered when creating a current account in a branch. Once this has happened, it is promised that the 300 euros “energy flat rate” will be paid out within the next four weeks. The BSI consequently recommends not following the requests in the e-mails and not giving out any personal data.
Source: BSI on Twitter
Reference-www.pcgameshardware.de