IPSO warns on fresh e-mail scam

Victor · 09-12-2004 11:38PM #1

http://www.rte.ie/business/2004/1209/IPSO.html

IPSO warns on fresh e-mail scam
December 09, 2004 14:07

The Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO) has urged customers to be alert to a fresh email scam which attempts to obtain internet banking users' account information.

The scam, which is called 'phishing', entails millions of e-mails being sent out directing people to a website which looks identical to their bank's own online home page. A handful of bank customers in Ireland have received these e-mails over the last few days.

The e-mails advise consumers to 'update' or 'confirm' their account details by clicking on the bogus link in the e-mail. The sites are carbon copies of the original bank site and by entering names, account details and passwords, online customers allow the fraudsters behind them to go to the bank's real website and clean out their accounts.

Una Dillon, of IPSO Card Services advises consumers never to give out personal information over the internet and to avoid following links in e-mails. 'Always type the URL of the website you wish to visit into the navigation bar yourself', she says.

The scams are thought to operate out of Eastern Europe and Russia and are affecting numerous banks around Europe, with some Irish institutions affected.

Capt'n Midnight · 10-12-2004 12:46AM

New ways of phishing appear regularly so it's safe to assume that even if you have the latest patches you could still be vunerable to a new one.

tip - if you do decide to look at a link in an email, make sure it's plain text rather than HTML so nothing is hidden. In Outlook - click reply (so you can make changes to it) and then Format , Plain Text, also check for slightly different spellings of your banks name

Injection spoofing focus

is_that_so · 10-12-2004 12:54AM

Getting lots of these for accounts I don't even have.

dahamsta · 10-12-2004 01:07AM

Fresh? I'd hate to be eating Una's bread if she thinks phishing is "fresh".

adam

EKRIUQ · 10-12-2004 09:01PM

I got them for Loyds, Citibank and somewhere else, the site looks identical to the offical site but I know its bogus because I havn't got accounts there!!

Blackjack · 13-12-2004 11:15PM

Bang on there, Una is well behind the times. Most Banks take these pretty seriously, and will use whatever means at their disposal to have these sites shut down. Not sure how easy this is for them, I would expect it would probably depend on the country from which the site is being run.

IPSO warns on fresh e-mail scam

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