Phishers Exploit Credit Crunch
October 06, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
Phishers are using the confusion over bank mergers to lure the unwary into revealing their banking details.
Who owns which bank now? You’d certainly be forgiven for not being able to tell the players without a scorecard. And that, according to security company SonicWall, is what’s behind the latest round of phishing attacks hitting people.
The phishers are taking advantage of the confusion currently surrounding the banking industry to try and trick people into revealing their bank details and passwords on fake sites. In one example, concerning the takeover of Washington Mutual, people are asked to reveal their details in order to "activate new security features for our new and old online banking customers."
Yeah, right.
Do it and your details are given to a fake Chinese website, harvested and sold so your bank account can be stripped or your identity stolen.
As Andrew Klein, a product manager at SonicWall, told CNET:
"Banks wouldn't do this online. Traditionally, what happens is you get a letter in the mail."
The phishers are becoming clever and more timely, too – they’re even using Google Trends to discover the most popular search terms and then exploit them.
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