Phishing attacks using My Kanta, Kela names continue

Online messages and websites pretending to be associated with the My Kanta Pages still continue to appear, seeking to redirect users to fake websites.

There have also been attempts made to get at users’ online banking codes and personal information in the name of the national social insurance institution Kela, said Kela in a press release on Tuesday.

Kela urged the users to go to www.kanta.fi and www.kela.fi to log in securely to the My Kanta Pages and the OmaKela e-service.

Towards the end of 2021, Kela reported a number of scams using the names of Kela and the My Kanta Pages, which targeted users’ personal information and online banking credentials.

When the victim enters his or her online banking credentials on a fake website, the criminals gain access to the victim’s online bank and can steal money from the victim’s account.

Links redirecting users to fake websites have been posted on social media and search engines. Some users have received an email containing a link to a phishing site. Reports of phishing attacks have continued to come in 2022.

According to Jouni Ihanus, head of Kela’s security operations centre, new scams appear constantly, and the ways they are perpetrated continue to evolve as well.

It is not enough to be on the lookout for suspicious messages. Users should also make it a habit to log in through each organisation’s official website only.

Ihanus said that the websites set up by criminals can look much like the official websites maintained by Kela, the Kanta Services or other government organisations.

Increasingly, the scam websites and messages are written in fluent Finnish.

Ihanus said that users should make sure that they are logging into a legitimate service.

He advises anyone who has fallen victim to a scam to report it to the National Cyber Security Centre and to the organisation whose name was used in the scam.

For security reasons, sensitive information such as personal identity codes should never be sent by email.

Kela or the Kanta Services will never contact users by email or text message to ask for their information.