'Health Checkup Report Sent' Click Leads to Personal Data Theft... SMS Alert

The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) on the 25th issued a special warning that smishing messages resembling 'health checkup notification messages' have recently been sent out impersonating the NHIS.

The NHIS periodically sends notification messages via Naver electronic documents, KakaoTalk, and other platforms to health checkup recipients to encourage them to undergo health examinations. When sending these messages, the sender's representative phone number (1577-1000), indicating that the message is from the NHIS, is displayed.

Health checkup phishing smishing message. [Photo by National Health Insurance Service]

If you receive a message containing a suspicious internet address (URL) different from the official one, you must never click on it. Clicking on the malicious URL in a smishing message can lead to interception of mobile phone micropayment information or leakage of personal information.

If you enter personal information after accessing a fake URL, you are immediately exposed to hacking. Therefore, you should promptly discard personal information such as digital certificates, security cards, and address books, and report the incident to the Korea Internet & Security Agency's Illegal Spam Response Center.

An NHIS official stated, "Messages containing suspicious internet addresses should be deleted immediately, and smartphones should be regularly scanned using mobile antivirus software."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.