Cybercriminals Increase Phishing Attacks

This post was written by admin on November 5, 2008
Posted Under: Free PC Security, Web of Trust, personal information, phishing

Cybercriminals have been capitalizing on the global financial crisis in the past few weeks by increasing the volume of phishing and spam messages being sent.

The emails are not much different from older attacks, but because they are topical and look authentic, nervous consumers are at risk for falling for the scam.

Security experts and the US federal government have warned that phishing and social engineering ploys are the highest risks currently facing the financial industry and consumers.

Internet users should be on alert for fake emails that look as if they have come from an authentic financial institution.

These phishing messages are seeking personal information – account numbers, passwords and Social Security numbers - which cybercriminals will use to empty out accounts and then sell on the underground market.

Many of these look quite genuine, but users should be very wary of any email that requests their login details to be processed either by replying to a supplied fake email address or links that lead to fake sites.

Web of Trust has produced a short video about the current wave of phishing attacks and what users can do to protect themselves.

There are thousands of these in circulation and some users DO fill in their details.

What they are doing is providing the phisher with their username and password which grants full access to their account, whether it be Paypal, online banking and other financial institutions.

The easiest way to deal with these is to report them as spam to your email provider, forward a copy to whichever online institution is involved ie: spoof@paypal.com and then DELETE it.

Be especially wary of those that also request any of the following details:

Full Name(s)...................................................................
Address:........................................................................
Country:........................................................................
Phone no:........................
Fax: no:..................................
Gender:.............................your category........................
Marital Status:...............................................................
Age:............................
Amount won:................................
Occupation:...................................................................
Email Address:...............................................................
Batch no:.......................................................................
Award no:......................................................................
Ticket no:......................................................................
Serial no:.......................................................................
Ref. no:.........................................................................
Bank Account Details:....................................................
Telephone And FAX of Your Bank.....................................
Scan Copy Of Passport/Drivers Licence...........................

This is far too much information and by passing this on to an unknown third party leaves you vulnerable to Identity Theft and Fraud, which is the fastest growing crime.

Any financial institutions that you have dealings with already have your details and will NEVER ask for confirmation in this way.

Ensure that when you do login that it is through the companies home page which frequently is secured with the 'https' prefix.

Use WOT as preventative protection against online threats to avoid spyware, browser hijacking, identity theft, phishing and other Internet scams.

Financial institutions never require customers to give account information via email. If you receive an email requesting this data, don't reply.

Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software and update them regularly.

Use a good firewall and consider using KeyScrambler to encrypt all information you type in.

Review your financial account statements as soon as you receive them.

Supporting Facts of WOT:
WOT has been downloaded by over 1 million users
Information on over 20.6 million websites
Based on WOT statistics, 1 out of 20 sites is dangerous
WOT users can contribute by rating and commenting on websites
WOT partners with a number of trusted sources, such as PhishTank, TRUSTe, hpHosts, DNS-BH Malware Domain list and Artists Against 419