Incidents

Legitimate Bank Email Used in Phishing Scam

Phishers turn to real information belonging to banks

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

26th of May 2008, 07:47 GMT

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Phishers now turn to telephones in order to get private details

Today's phishers have pretty advanced techniques and today's report comes to support this statement. According to Port Clinton News Herald, a phisher used an

email account belonging to First National Bank of Bellevue in order to send phishing emails to its customers. As usual, the main goal of the scam was to trick users into disclosing their private financial details such as account numbers and security credentials.

However, the way the scam worked is a little bit different than the traditional ones, asking users to visit a certain website. This time, the phisher attempted to access a phone line which, when used, requested callers to reactivate their bank accounts, demanding private details.

Police officers are already tracking down the phone number, but there's no word on how many people failed victims to the scam. However, in case somebody disclosed important information, he is recommended to call the Port Clinton police at (419) 734-3121, Port Clinton News Herald added.

"It looks to be legitimate because it's coming from the bank's e-mail. We're seeing it everywhere between here and Sandusky. People should not respond to that e-mail," Detective Bob Case of Port Clinton police commented.

Traditional phishing scams have proved to be pretty dangerous, especially for people who don't have any protection against this kind of illegal activity. However, even with the appropriate one, it's quite difficult to stay on the safe side against this type of phishing scam unless you notice it's dangerous and you must not disclose your banking information.

Most anti-phishing applications usually block malicious websites but, since in today's case readers are asked to call a phone number, such protection would be useless. Moreover, anti-spam filters would also be of no help because the phisher gave a legitimate bank account, supposed to be trusted by most users. That's why extra-care is recommended whenever you're asked to provide your banking information. However, keep in mind that most services, companies and organizations never ask for your sensitive details!

TAGS:

seucirty | phishing | bank | email | spam

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