Phishers cash in on banking crisis
Published: 03 Oct 2008 11:57 BST
Phishers are exploiting confusion over consolidation in the financial industry to extract victims' personal and banking details.
Security firm SonicWall said on Thursday that it has been seeing emails that attempt to lure people to fake bank websites, where they are asked to reverify their personal and bank information due to a merger.
In one example that targets people affected by the Chase acquisition of Washington Mutual, the email asks recipients to click on a link and confirm their identity so Chase can "activate new security features for our new and old online banking customers".
The link goes to a fake Chase website that asks for account log-in and other information, said Andrew Klein, a product manager at SonicWall. The scammers are gathering the information to sell to cybercriminals who will use it to transfer money out of victims' accounts or commit identity fraud, he said.
"Banks wouldn't do this online," Klein told ZDNet.co.uk sister site CNET News.com. "Traditionally, what happens is you get a letter in the mail."
Phishers and scammers commonly exploit news events to lure victims to sites that contain malware or that ask them to supply information. Cybercriminals are even using Google Trends to find out what web-search terms are the most popular, in order to make sure they have timely and relevant content on their sites with which to attract victims.
However, this particular type of phishing attempt is particularly dangerous, given how confused many consumers are about what the bank acquisitions will mean for them.
SonicWall has created a quiz to test knowledge of phishing and spam techniques.
Credit: New phishing attempt targets bank customers from CNET News
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