The advent of information technology in India has revolutionized various sectors. The internet has enabled the easy and convenient way of filing income tax returns.  The Income Tax returns in India can be paid online through the website of Income Tax Authority.  In recent times, the number of people paying IT returns online has increased drastically.

The   technology enhancement has also witnessed a sharp rise in cyber criminals and cyber crimes.  The cyber crooks are launching many cyber-attacks especially the phishing attacks. The phishing is an art of creating fake login pages that appear to originate from a trusted authority. These attacks mainly help the criminals to get information about the people.

The fake pages are created depicting the original website pages of Income Tax Department.  When the user enters all the details, these details are actually sent to the criminal but not the income tax website.  This enables the criminal to get the details of the customer and an attack is launched against the customer.

Though, the INDIAN IT ACT has provisions relating to Phishing under Section 66 most of the people are not aware. The people are not using filtering mechanisms to figure out the authenticity of the websites.  The people are not aware and educated in this regard .This loophole is used to launch a phishing attack thereby causing a huge loss to the government and the people.

PHISHING ATTACKS HIT ONLINE IT RETURNS IN INDIA

Report by Sai Sushanth