Fake website mimicking Supreme Court surfaces, Registry issues public notice

Cybercrime cases are rising by the day across the country. As cyber security gets stronger, cyber criminals are also finding more sophisticated ways to cheat people. In the latest case, fraudsters have created a fake website that looks like the Supreme Court's own.

The fake website resembled the real one so closely that it may be very hard for an ordinary person to tell the two apart. As soon as the matter came to light, the Registry of the Supreme Court promptly issued a public notice to alert people across the country.

With fraudsters now targeting the Supreme Court directly, the question of public safety has become more serious. Many tasks today are done over the internet, using all kinds of websites. What happens if the website you are on turns out to be fake? The biggest question is how an ordinary person can tell a real website from a fake one. A few simple pointers have been listed.

In India, the address of a government or court website always ends in .gov.in or .nic.in. Websites created by cyber criminals typically end in .com, .net or .top.

Fraudsters give their websites long names that resemble the real name. This confuses people, who cannot immediately tell the real site from the fake one.

Instead of opening any link received in a message or text, go to Google and type the name of the website yourself. The URL of an authorised website begins with https://. A padlock icon also appears at the start of the URL, and clicking it lets you check the security certificate.

An authorised website carries options such as the actual address, customer service number, official email ID and About Us. A fake website does not have these.

If you have mistakenly used a fake website created by fraudsters, first inform your bank and tell them everything. Ask the bank to block your account and cards. Then change the passwords of your accounts, Gmail, social media and banking apps. Report the entire incident on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.