May 31, 2005
Another Round of Phishing
This weekend as I sat down and opened up my email account and it suddenly became evident that we are in for another round of phishing scams.
What I mean by this is I received several messages looking for individuals to become a “representative� of a privately held company, in this case if I provide my name, address, email, bank name, bank account number, routing numbers, social security number, etc... The trade off for providing such information is the opportunity of a lifetime to become a “representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in the Canada/America and Europe as well as making payments through you to us�. The reality is two fold, a newly cleaned out bank account and second, the likely hood that my computer has become infected with spyware, Trojan horses and key stroke loggers.
In the past such phishing scams have come in the form of letters requesting similar information from eBay, banks, paypal, and Nigeria. According to a recent article on the topic “Our research also suggests that phishing attacks are becoming more widespread and well organised.� (John Leyden, The Register May 18 2005 8:07AM)
What this all means is we will have more spam in our inboxes, and those who are vulnerable to such scams will need continued education on keeping their identity, accounts, and computer safe.
-SG
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Posted by gathers at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)