14 DAY TRIAL // Spam analysts from AV vendor BitDefender warn of a new phishing campaign targeting Bank of America costumers. The spam e-mails bear the branding elements of the company and instruct potential victims to visit a link and complete a fake customer form with their credit card information.
The phishing e-mails' "From" fields are spoofed to appear as being sent from a [email protected] address and have subjects such as "Customer notification (message ref: [random number])." The attackers did their best to make it look like an automated message, the footer even instructing users not to reply to the message, because the e-mail is not a secure form of communication.
"We would like to inform you that we have released a new version of Bank of America Customer Form. This form is required to be completed by all Bank of America customers," the e-mail claims, before displaying a legit-looking URL. The link actually points to a web page hosted on a .co.uk domain that masquerades as the Bank of America online banking website.
Users visiting this page are provided with a form asking them to give away sensitive information such as their name, e-mail address, credit card number, expiration date, CVV2 and PIN. Such details are more than enough to perform identity theft and credit card fraud.
The BitDefender analysts point out that, despite the page claiming to be part of a "Secure Area," it lacks the associated security elements, such as an SSL encryption and the HTTPS prefix. As with other similar phishing scams, the attackers avoid arousing suspicions by redirecting users to the real Bank of America website after the form is submitted.
Bank of America has been targeted by phishers many times before. In fact, according to BitDefender's latest E-Threats Landscape Report, it is "the number one spoofed bank identity in the world." At the beginning of last month, we reported about a similar attack that was orchestrated against customers of the Bank of America Direct program.
