14 DAY TRIAL // The website of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) belonging to the Nigerian government was found to host a clever phishing page that targeted the credentials of Halifax bank customers.
This strategy has been seen back in July 2011 when more than 140 phishing sites were discovered to be hosted on government domains worldwide, but it seems that the method paid off for the crooks.
Many Internet users probably noticed that pages which replicate bank sites hosted on suspicious domains are usually scams and that’s why the cybercriminals wanted to add an extra flavor to their plots to make them look more realistic.
The irony in this certain situation is that NITDA is one of the government agencies that handles the “development of strategy, standards and guidelines for computer network security for the Nigerian environment.”
Netcraft reports that NITDA has been notified on the issue and the fraudulent page was blocked.