Seoul City on Tuesday issued what it called a “livelihood alert” following its disovery of a massive smishing scam that involves imposters claiming to raise money to award a gold medal to figure skater Kim Yu-na.

Officials said that scammers send a text reading, “Thank you, Kim Yu-na. We will compensate for your robbed gold medal. Compensation of 30,000 won ($28),” along with the URL or Internet address, taking advantage of the public sentiment over the Olympic Games to cheat money out of smartphone users.

Once a smartphone user clicks the URL in the message, a malignant application is automatically installed and moves to steal bank or credit card information.

The city’s livelihood alert system, launched this year, warns against massive spam texts, voice phishing or smishing as part of efforts to help Seoulites take preventive measures.

With the help of the Korea Internet Security Agency, Seoul City said it will regularly issue such advisories.

The city administration advised citizens to update their antivirus software for their smartphones and not to click the links in suspicious messages.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)