Phishers Increasingly Targeting Utah Credit Unions

Some credit unions in Utah (California, USA) state that their consumers have been recently hit by a phishing scam following the use of several Utah-based accounts in the end week of February 2009 to carry out spurious transactions.

The fraudsters pretending to represent a Utah Credit Union distributed fake warnings through e-mail to innocent consumers. The messages say that the accounts of the customers have been deactivated and to resume their functioning, users must provide their account details for verification.

However, the Credit Union explained that the messages aren't genuine and it doesn't send e-mail to its customers requesting for any type of personal information.

Hence, as precautionary measure, the Utah Credit Union has posted certain security rules on its website that would assist a consumer to know more about phishing as well as everything he/she needs to do if ensnared in one such incident.

As per the directed security rules, if a consumer gets an e-mail in which the Credit Union requests the user for his/her personal information, then he/she should not reply to it. Instead, the recipient needs to get in touch with the Union instantly so that the appropriate officials are notified and an investigation is initiated.

Furthermore, the Credit Union further stated that when a consumer goes to the Union's website, he should look for the padlock symbol indicating that the page is encrypted as well as security certificate is active. By double-clicking on the padlock and browsing the details of the certificate, consumers can find out if the Utah Central Credit Union is certified as secure and they are surfing an authentic website.

Meanwhile, attacking websites of Credit Unions (CU) and its consumers has come to be the most preferred target of phishing scammers recently. Notably, the Utah Credit Union phishing scam is the second instance of online fraudsters striking the Utah State in just one month (February 2009). In older scam, phishers netted a huge $2.5 Million using the well-known Nigerian scam. In the meantime, other CUs too are complaining of phishing scams.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 3/12/2009