Phishing is a relatively new phenomenon in India,
though United States, South America and Europe have
been reeling under its impact for years now. The new
scam mail targeting the rather soft Indian customer,
who's naiver in terms of awareness on such activities,
goes ahead and tries a contemporary trend in international
online fraud. It tells users that a popular bank is
updating their online security mechanism, so the user
should key-in his banking information in the website
that the fake email leads them to!
Security Analysts at MicroWorld Technologies warn
that a Phishing mail in the name of one of India's
leading Banks, ICICI, has been found to be spammed
to targeted user groups for the last couple of weeks,
aiming to steal sensitive financial information.
The mail reads that the ICICI bank is upgrading to
a new SSL Server to insulate customers against online
Identity Theft and other criminal activities. Users
are told to confirm their personal banking information
following the link given in the mail. It also warns
that if the user does not complete the form, the online
bank account will be suspended till further notification.
Once the user clicks on the link, he is taken to a
bogus website that looks identical to the original
one, where he is made to part with his account number,
password and PIN number.
Phishing is the cyber form of Identity Theft using
fake spam emails and fake websites of reputed financial
organizations. You receive an email that seems to
be coming from a reputed bank, Credit Card firm, Auction
website or any other financial institution. The message
tries one of the several tricks to induce you to click
on a link provided in the mail and gets you to reveal
your personal information. This stolen information
is used for sophisticated Online Robbery, Identity
Theft and other Internet related crimes.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry consortium
formed to fight this mode of crime, says in its study
that the attacks in recent months were double that
of what were reported in the same months last year.
With e-commerce growing rapidly, Phishing attempts
may grow multifold this year, faking more brands and
institutions to loot more victims around the globe.
Every single psychological ploy, right from shocking,
luring, scaring and threatening directly have been
used by scam artists as ways of mass "Social
Engineering" to get the potential victims to
fall in line. There were mails that posed as regular
account verification from the banks, the ones that
offered users free tickets and coupons for filling
in a survey, the types that told users that their
account is compromised by identity thieves and more
recently, security warnings, like the ones witnessed
in the ICICI bank scam.
"More and more Indians are logging on to online
banking and plastic money thanks to a booming economy
and the IT revolution," said Sunil Kripalani,
Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, MicroWorld
Technologies. "An increasing number of such attacks
should be anticipated in India and elsewhere, who's
economies are on the course of resurgence, as scamsters
know that these targets are softer in comparison.
Effective spam control, Anti-Phishing and Virus protection
are key factors in fighting this menace, going hand
in hand with larger campaigns for user awareness and
education."
MicroWorld
MicroWorld (www.mwti.net
) is the developer of the world's first Real-Time
Anti-Virus and Content Security software eScan
for desktops and servers. Its communication security
software,
MailScan is the first comprehensive e-mail
scanner for your SMTP/POP3 Mail Server. MicroWorld
Winsock Layer (MWL) is the revolutionary technology
underlying these products, powering them to several
certifications and awards by some of the most prestigious
testing bodies, notable among them being Virus Bulletin,
Checkmark, TUCOWS, Red Hat Ready, and Novell Ready.
Combining their powerful scanner with MWL technology,
MicroWorld solutions provide a Real-Time Proactive
security for your systems. For network security of
enterprises, eConceal Firewall is the latest powerful
offering from MicroWorld.
To learn more, kindly visit http://www.mwti.net.
