New wave of fraud cases prompts fresh phishing warnings

Customers using online banking have once again been warned to be wary of phishing following a series of online frauds.

Phishing is the term used for obtaining sensitive account and credit card information by through a fake website.

Emirates 247 has learnt of at least two recent incidents where customers of a prominent UK based global bank have lost almost Dh120,000 to online fraud.

“My friend lost Dh100,000 from his accounts recently. The money was withdrawn from his online account.
 
He has now trying to sort the issue with the bank,” said Greg M.
 
In another incident Dh20,000 was taken off from an online account of a UAE resident, currently living in the US.
 
According to reports the number of phishing attacks in UK alone has increased by 16 per cent.
 
Banking information was stolen from almost around 100,000 UK consumers using the Zeus Trojan.

According to the September 2010 State of Spam and Phishing Report released by Symantec phishing messages overall increased by 11 per cent in July.
 
The boost was primarily due to an increase in automated toolkit attacks. Phishing websites created by automated toolkits in-creased by 92 per cent.
 
Unique URLs increased slightly by 3 pe rcent, and phishing websites with IP domains increased significantly by about 147 per cent.
 
On Tuesday (September 21) FraudWatch International issued a warning about a phishing email targeting Western Union clients asking them to provide their credit card CCV2 number.
 
In July FraudWatch had alerted about a warning that Mashreq Bank is the target of a phishing scam.
 
Customers of the bank were targeted with an email with a link transferring them to a fake Mashreq Bank website.
 
Users of online banking facilities have been urged to always crosscheck the URL of the website they are visiting.
 
Banks too have raised their preparedness and have introduced various solutions including instant SMS alerts on the usage of credit and debit cards and introduced some restrictions on international usage.

Jonathan Campbell-James  Regional Head of Security and Fraud Risk Middle East – HSBC says "Phishing attempts continue to be made by fraudsters to persuade customers to give away their bank security details.
 
The fraudsters try to do this by pretending to be part of the bank in emails to customers, and they use a variety of excuses in attempts to get customers to give away their passwords and other security details.

"In general, computer users should only click on links when they are sure they know who has sent them the link – if you click on a link presented by a stranger or some unknown entity, there is a danger you will load malware onto your computer.

Abdalla El Said, head of Credit Card sales at the First Gulf Bank says they have introduced a unique credit card specifically for online usage which requires the customer to enter a password, authenticated by the bank, before any transactions can take affect.

“The incidents’ of online fraud and phishing keeps increasing. It can however be minimized by increasing awareness among clients.” Said Said, who headed the Fraud and Risk departments at the First Gulf Bank in the UAE and the Citybank in Egypt.

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