Phishers try to pull a fast one on Bank of America customers

A new Phishing mail in circulation, drafted to look like an official Annual Account Review notification from Bank of America, tries to pilfer personal financial information of the bank’s customers by advising them to update their account details online.
 
Security Experts at MicroWorld Technologies inform that the con-mail starts off by referring to the safety and integrity of Bank of America accounts and soon proceeds to briefing the user on the need to update the account information, in order to protect it from fraudsters!
 
Once the customer spends a few minutes in giving the information, he or she should have no problems in continuing one’s normal activities on the account, says the bait mail. Then it gets to the obvious by prompting the recipient to click on a link that opens up a page where the user’s information can be updated.
 
As soon as the recipient clicks on the submit button after keying in vital information of the account, it goes straight into hands of the scamster located at god knows where, even as the URL of the con website is hosted in Sweden.
 
“MicroWorld Lab’s Global Phishing Monitoring System indicates that fraudulent mails like these are increasing rapidly as there’s an average 12% rise in the number of such unique mails month on month,” says Sunil Kripalani, Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, MicroWorld Technologies. “Not only are scamsters getting smarter in the mail content and persuasion techniques, but a section of them are also making the attacks more targeted and personalized as they do their ground work before aiming at a potential victim”.
 
According to Sunil Kripalani, a new trend in the online ID theft scene is to combine the technique of Vishing with Phishing to produce a two tiered scam which lends more credibility to the whole trap. In here, he says, the recipient of the email is told to dial a fraudulent customer care number to update the account information. Set on a low-cost VoIP service, the mechanism will have an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) that resembles the telephonic customer care procedure of most banks and it will prompt the victim to divulge their account information.
 
MicroWorld Technologies offers comprehensive protection for home PC users against Spamming and Phishing with eScan AntiVirus and Content Security software, which is powered by a combination of advanced technologies. For Enterprise email security at the mail gateway, MicroWorld offers MailScan 5.0 which uses technologies like SPF checks and the revolutionary NILP technology in identifying and blocking Phishing mails.