How to avoid OTP fraud

An OTP or One Time Password is an added security measure that involves a two-step authentication for your online transactions. This time-bound OTP has become a very popular option for most financial transactions.

Owing to the growing popularity, it faces a corresponding increase in threats from fraudsters, who try to steal your OTP in order to compromise your account or make unauthorized financial transactions.

OTP theft methods:

In most cases, OTP fraud occurs when -

Your phone is infected by a malware.

The malware can then read your messages that contain the OTP and compromise your account.

You are duped into revealing the OTP to a fraudster on call/sms/email.

Fraudsters will try to lure you by making false promises of helping with a transaction or providing better services and if their attempts succeed, trick you into completing unauthorized transactions or even cause identity theft.

Steps you can take:

Please exercise caution while using links embedded in an SMS or short (bitly) links when you are unsure about the source of the message or the sender. Clicking these links can corrupt and compromise both your phone and the OTP without you realising it.

Citi or its employees or any genuine company will never ask for your credit or debit card details, including confidential information like your card number, card expiry date, CVV, OTP or internet password. Do not share these details with anyone over phone or e-mail as this could lead to fraud.

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