Phishing Emails Exploit Turmoil of Bank Sector

The meltdown of the banking sector is being exploited by scammers in order to trick the users of the banks into giving them their sensitive personal financial information. Phishing emails are commonly used as security checks in the form of a prospective bank. In the latest of these phishing emails, scammers are imitating official announcements about merging banks.

These emails will redirect their victim to a website designed to look like a site for the new financial lender or institution, but it’s not. This is actually a bogus website whose aim is to trick the user into giving them their personal information so that the operator(s) can steal their identity, running up their bills or committing crimes in their name. Their way of getting the information is by asking the user to confirm, validate, or update their account information.

Wachovia seems to be one of their main targets, having the second highest number of attacks during September. There have been over 20,000 of these fake phishing sites established in just the first half of the year, which is an increase of 180% since the first half of last year.

The Federal Trade Commission is advising people as to how to be on guard against these kinds of scams. They are working to prevent deceptive, unfair, and fake business practices and to give out information that will help users to spot, avoid, and stop these practices. All of the internet, identity theft, telemarketing, and other complaints related to fraud that are obtained by the Federal Trade Commission are entered into the Consumer Sentinel, which is a secure database online that is accessible by hundreds of criminal and civil law enforcement agencies around the world.

source http://www.mns.co.uk/0121316.html

FTC warns consumers of increase in Internet scams

E-mail scams that "phish" for personal information may increase amid the current financial crisis, the Federal Trade Commission warned consumers Thursday.

Separately, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said it has received numerous reports of a fraudulent e-mail that appears to be from the government agency. Its subject line reads, "Funds wired into your account are stolen."

"Scammers are taking advantage of upheavals in the financial marketplace to confuse consumers into parting with valuable personal information," the FTC said in an advisory note on its Web site.

Phishers send e-mails disguised as being from an official institution, such as a bank or mortgage company. The agency said consumers should take extra caution in responding to any e-mails that look as if they are from financial institutions because of the increased likelihood of scams.

"These messages may be from 'phishers' looking to use personal information -- account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers -- to run up bills or commit other crimes in a consumer's name," the FTC said.

That, according to the FDIC, is what the e-mail that appears to be sent from its offices attempts to do.

"Recipients should consider the intent of the executable file as a malicious attempt to collect personal or confidential information, some of which may be used to gain unauthorized access to online banking services or to conduct identity theft," FDIC said in a statement on its Web site.

Almost no banks or financial institutions request that type of information from their customers.

Source www.businessweek.com