Phishing Scams Spooding AP&T & Other Trademark Giants

According to reports came in the 4th week of July 2008, it was found that some Alameda Power & Telecom customers received an e-mail, which although seemed to be from the company, was actually spoofed e-mail described as a part of a phishing scam by security examiners.

Meanwhile, according to security analysts, 'phishing' refers to a fraudulent attempt by criminals to steal sensitive information like usernames, passwords and debit/credit card details by pretending to represent a trusted organization. Also, in phishing scams, a legitimate-looking e-mail is dispatched to a potential victim in efforts to get him attracted to it so that he opens it and follows the instructions given in the message.

In the same manner, the current case of Alameda has a legitimate-appearing e-mail requesting the consumer to confirm his account information by providing e-mail password. However, Alameda Power & Telecom said that the e-mail is a hoax and should be abandoned without being responded to. In fact, according to the company, it does not ask customers to provide their account passwords or any other private information via an e-mail communication.

Nonetheless, Alameda stated that in case, a consumer has replied to this fake e-mail, he should immediately contact the company's helpdesk by calling at 1-888-207-0204. This would enable them to reset his e-mail password and also assist them in adopting precautionary measures for keeping the person's account details safe.

Also, as per reports, apart from Alameda Power & Telecom, the phishing criminals have also spoofed other brands like eBay, PayPal, YouTube and many leading banking and financial organizations. This has been done to entice the innocent users into viewing the phishers' e-mails and into clicking on the included links to sites that get them to disclose their identifying details to the fraudsters.

This mode of phishing, said security analysts, is called a brand spoofing, whereby phishers use brand names as baits to entice Internet users. They also said that some e-mail could be so persuasive that even users having technical skill might fail to distinguish a brand-spoofing e-mail from a legitimate e-mail such as one sent from AP&T.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 8/14/2008