28.03.2025 11:51
Before the Ramadan Feast, the 4,000 lira holiday bonuses that began to be paid to retirees have become a target for cyber scammers.
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Some retirees received messages from scammers stating that holiday bonuses had been defined, with the phrase 'Ministry of Labor and Social Security' underneath. The scammers aim to infiltrate citizens' mobile phones through the links they send, accessing personal data and bank accounts. In a written statement from the ministry, it was stated, "These SMS messages have not been sent by our ministry, and we do not have a practice of informing citizens via SMS that bonuses have been deposited into accounts."
"THEY ARE COPYING ALL ACCOUNT DATA"
Forensic Computing Expert Prof. Dr. Ali Murat Kırık, Head of the Visual Communication Design Department at Marmara University Faculty of Communication, stated that cyber scammers are working to trap citizens again, taking advantage of the holiday. Kırık said, "They send SMS messages to citizens using the names of certain government institutions, organizations, and banks. By clicking the link in this SMS, citizens fall into the trap. Cyber scammers, taking advantage of the payment of holiday bonuses, send these messages especially to retired citizens to seize e-Government data and access bank accounts to empty them. In fact, this is a phishing attack. As citizens click the link, either malware is downloaded to their devices, or they are redirected to fake cloned sites. Generally, they are redirected to fake e-Government and fake bank sites. Here, citizens fall into the scammers' trap by entering their TC identity numbers and passwords for e-Government. Because in the background, cyber scammers are capturing this information. In the later process, they can access citizens' e-Government accounts. They can copy all their account data and information and carry out all kinds of transactions on their behalf," he said.
"THEY SHOULD FILE A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT"
Kırık emphasized that in such cases, a criminal complaint should be filed with a sample message, stating, "At the same time, they also use banks at this point. They replicate the banks where retirement salaries are received. They request credit card information, bank card information, and passwords from our citizens. After our citizens enter their information on these fake sites, cyber scammers capture this data in the background. Thus, citizens' accounts are emptied, and later these scammers disappear without a trace. We must be particularly careful during this period. We should approach SMS messages sent by cyber scammers with great caution. We must never click on the links present here. Because banks or government institutions do not send links regarding the payment of holiday bonuses in any way. They do not provide you with such information. It is extremely important not to click on such links and not to pay attention to such messages. If citizens find themselves in this situation, they must take screenshots of the relevant messages. They should also take a sample of this message and file a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office," he said.
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