India's Top 5 Banks Targeted in a Phishing Scam

 

The customers of State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI, HDFC, Axis Bank, and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have been alerted regarding a serious security vulnerability. Threat actors are trying to lure Indian users into revealing important private information using the mobile apps of the aforementioned banks. The report suggests that suspicious messages prompted users to submit an application for disbursement of the income tax refund. 

The threat actors are attaching a link with these texts that looks like an income tax e-filing web page. The suspicious links originate from the US and France without a domain name and are not linked with the Indian government, as per the revelation made in an investigation by New Delhi-based think tank CyberPeace Foundation along with cybersecurity services firm Autobot Infosec. 

Furthermore, the report claims that all IP addresses associated with the campaign belong to some third-party cloud hosting providers. The entire campaign uses the normal or plain HTTP protocol instead of the secure https. This means that anyone on the network or the internet can intercept traffic and obtain confidential information in normal text format to misuse against the victim.

How do threat actors exploit vulnerabilities?

Threat actors install malware in these banking apps and then lure the users in downloading an application from a third-party source instead of the Google Play Store. This application then asks the administrator to provide all rights and permit unnecessary use of the device. 

On opening the link http://204.44.124[.]160/ITR, users are redirected to a landing page, which looks similar to the official government income tax e-filing websites. Now, the users are asked to click on the 'green color' and proceed to the verification steps. Users are further asked to submit private information such as their full name, PAN number, Aadhaar number, address, PIN code, date of birth, mobile number, email address, gender, marital status, and banking. 

Apart from this, they are also asked to fill in information such as account number, IFSC code, card number, expiration date, CVV, and card PIN. All of this information is being finally transferred to the threat actors.

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