New York State CPB Highlights Increase in Phishing Scams

At a New York conference called the 2008 Top Consumer Frauds & Complaints Conference, New York State's CPB (Consumer Protection Board) highlighted that phishing scams were on the rise. The conference was organized on March 6, 2009.

Chairperson and Executive Director of the NY State CPB, Mindy Bockstein, said that she observed that phishing scams coming into people's inboxes increased 300% in 2008, as reported by WNYC on March 5, 2009.

Security experts state that phishing e-mails sometimes in other forms like whaling or pharming are all common in tricking Internet surfers into handing over their personal information or sending money. The types of personal information sought include name, date-of-birth, phone number, address, username, password or social security number that the phishers later use to commit identity fraud and/or other offences.

All types of phishing scams occupied the highest ratings on the Top Ten Major Complaints Listings of CPB for all quarters of 2008. These scams, according to the agency, cause problems to both businesses and consumers who remain the fraudsters' targets.

CPB further says that the increasing number of phishing scams adversely impact all forms of enterprises like retail, financial institutions or banks, US courts, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service along with other government bodies, as well as social networking websites, couriers and job-hunting sites, etc.

The CPB also took the opportunity to warn people about a phishing scam that involved scammers targeting Walgreens with a fake online survey that redirected consumers to a phony website where their private details were mined.

Besides, CPB urged people to look out for fraudulent e-mails using the title, "Phishing: Security measures". Similarly, the North County Gazette said that numerous e-mail messages were in the news that posed to be sent from eBay, PayPal or Chase Bank. According to these e-mails, the firm mentioned in the message couldn't find the victim's data and therefore, the recipient must furnish his password and payment card number, the Gazette claimed.

Here CPB reminded that no legitimate organization ever solicits personal information via e-mail so consumers must not respond to such messages.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 3/14/2009