Police warn of fake email DGT traffic fine demands

Police warn of fake email DGT traffic fine demands after receiving thousands of complaints from drivers in Spain.

A fake email with the subject of an unpaid fine seeks to deceive those drivers who think they have a pending matter with the DGT.

The General Directorate of Traffic already alerted the public in December 2020 that this type of scam had returned. The email is so good that it includes the official logos of the DGT itself and the Ministry of the Interior in order to lure its victims into the trap.

The aim of the false email is to encourage the user to click on the supposed official form after which they will be asked for their personal data in order to pay the supposed fine.

If by any chance the user falls for the scam, a file will be downloaded in the background without them noticing. Specifically, it is a compressed file hosted on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud, which will cause a series of commands to run that are ready to access the user’s data without them being aware of it.

A banking-type program known as Mekoito will then run and access the user’s bank account, squeezing every last euro out of it. This is based on a system capable of opening different windows and accessing different banking websites and pretending to be the user.

To avoid these deceptions, both the DGT and experts specialised in cybersecurity recommend looking at the email and checking its domain to rule out possible deceptions and scams.

The DGT has advised that it does not use this format to notify drivers about fines nor does it use the kind of language observed in the malicious email.

It seems incredible that we continue to fall for these hoaxes, but the truth is that the email seems very real, especially since the sender’s email address is admin@sede.dgt.gob.es. It is easy to deceive someone with such a realistic email which can often be confusing for the reader.

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