Central Bank of the Republic of San Marino warns on rising spoofing-driven cyber fraud and launches customer awareness campaign

The Central Bank of the Republic of San Marino issued an alert on the growing threat of computer fraud affecting customers of San Marino-authorised entities, and said it has initiated actions to raise awareness among domestic financial operators and trade associations to promote information campaigns. It also announced plans to add a dedicated financial education section to its website, positioning customer awareness as a key line of defence alongside intermediaries’ technical safeguards. The notice urges the public to treat phone calls, text messages and emails that appear to come from authorised San Marino entities with particular caution and to never share account access credentials or personal information via these channels, instead checking directly with the relevant institution. It highlights spoofing and social engineering techniques used to bypass protections such as strong customer authentication, and sets out risk-reduction steps including using different passwords, avoiding suspicious links and QR codes, not using public Wi‑Fi for home banking, enabling payment notifications, and promptly reporting suspicious activity to request blocking of payment cards and support the reversal of unauthorised transactions and reimbursement claims. The Bank also points to its registers as a way to verify whether an operator is authorised in San Marino and advises customers considering a remote relationship with a foreign firm to check the firm’s authorisations and consult the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) I‑SCAN database for unauthorised operators; attempted fraud can be reported to the Gendarmerie’s cybercrime investigations office, with user reports potentially triggering judicial police investigations.