The websites would appear frozen and unresponsive with pop-up alerts containing the SPF logo to pay outstanding fines
The police are reminding members of the public to ignore any pop-up alerts purportedly from the Singapore Police Force (SPF).
“In this scam variant, victims would encounter fraudulent pop-up alerts purportedly from the SPF while browsing websites on their computers or laptops,” SPF said in a statement released on Tuesday.
“The websites would appear frozen and unresponsive.”
The police said this is the latest scam variant where scammers deploy tactics such as activating the browser’s full-screen mode to block access to the browser’s controls and taskbar, or hiding the mouse cursor to make the webpage appear unresponsive.
The fraudulent pop-up alerts would contain the SPF logo and the victim’s purported outstanding fines for violating the law, the statement added.
Victims were then prompted to provide their bank card details to pay the “fines” only to realise that they have been scammed upon receipt of unauthorised card transactions.
The police said these alerts are fraudulent and that SPF does not have access to “lock” or “freeze” personal computers or laptops.
The police advise members of the public to “press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to trigger ‘Task Manager’ and force quit all applications” if they were to encounter such situations.
SPF also advises members of the public to adopt precautionary measures against scams by setting security features including setting up transaction limits for internet banking transactions, enabling ‘Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)’ and ‘Multifactor Authentication’ for banks.
Members of the public could also check the legitimacy of suspicious messages, phone numbers and website links via the ScamShield app or visit the ScamShield website at www.scamshield.gov.sg.
The police advise members of the public to report the fraudulent transactions to banks and the police including phishing websites in the internet browsers.
