iPhone users beware! Recent scams of this type are on the rise.

Police said that in this type of scam, the fraudsters use the iMessage feature on Apple devices to send victims images of a forged “loan overdue collection attorney’s letter.” The image states that the victim’s online lending is overdue and that they will face judicial litigation, urging the victim to repay as soon as possible. At the same time, the fraudsters embed a QR code link in the forged document, falsely claiming it is “possible to check the loan details,” luring the victim to scan the code and enter a counterfeit repayment website. Because the victims truly had engaged in real loan activity, under the “threat” of litigation they believed the collection notice. They then “made repayment” via bank card transfers on the counterfeit website, and were ultimately defrauded.

In the past month, reports of scams involving loan and credit card “agency services” that exploit Apple’s iMessage feature have surged. The city has already received 12 reports of related incidents, with the amount involved exceeding 260k yuan.

Police advise that when residents receive documents such as “attorney’s letters” and “collection notices,” they must verify the authenticity of the information through official channels (bank/loan institution customer service) and under no circumstances trust the contents of text messages or emails. QR codes of unknown origin usually carry an extremely high risk—please carefully identify them and access them cautiously. If you encounter a scam, please promptly take screenshots to preserve evidence and call 110 to report and seek help.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology urgently reminds Apple users

Recently, the Network Security Threats and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform (NVDB) under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology monitored and found that attackers are carrying out network attack activities using vulnerability exploitation tools targeting Apple’s end-user products. This may lead to serious harms such as information theft and system takeover. The scope of impact includes Apple end-user products such as iPhones and iPads running iOS 13.0 to 17.2.1.

Attackers induce users to use the Safari browser to access webpages containing malicious code by methods such as SMS, email, or web poisoning. They make comprehensive use of security vulnerabilities present in the end-user devices to implant remote-control trojans into the victim’s end-user products, steal sensitive information, obtain the highest permissions, and take control.

It is recommended that users of Apple end-user products conduct risk checks and, as soon as possible, patch and fix vulnerabilities by upgrading to newer versions and installing patches (you may refer to Apple’s security update announcements:

Original headline: 《Beijing police urgently remind Apple users》

Source: People’s Daily

Editor: Ding Baoxiu

A large amount of information and precise analysis are available in the Sina Finance APP