The National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) warned on the 26th that scam text messages impersonating the NHIS increase more than usual at the end of the year when many people undergo health checkups.
A case of a scam text impersonating the National Health Insurance Service. [Photo by National Health Insurance Service]
The scam texts include phrases such as "National Health Insurance health checkup certificate sent" or notifications about national health checkup eligibility or results, along with a website address (URL). Clicking on this URL, which contains malicious code, can infect the phone and lead to the leakage of personal information as well as personal and financial data.
In particular, the NHIS explained that at the busy year-end period when many checkup candidates gather, scammers take advantage of the congestion by impersonating the NHIS customer center number or pretending the message was sent by the NHIS to carry out fraudulent activities more frequently than usual.
The NHIS health checkup notification text messages only include the NHIS main phone number and do not contain any URLs. Also, the NHIS does not notify health checkup results via text messages. NHIS health checkup results can be checked on the NHIS website, the application "TheGeongangboheom," or by visiting a nearby NHIS branch in person.
If you suspect a message is a scam, do not click on the URL in the text message, and report it through the Korea Internet & Security Agency's Illegal Spam Response Center or the "Illegal Spam Easy Report" app. Recently, there have also been cases of damage via email, so if the sender's email address is not an official NHIS email account, do not click on any links and delete the message immediately.
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