Phishing Attack on People’s Bank Accounts in the UAE

According to the officials, users in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ajman strongly believe that they are among innumerous clients who were ripped off last December 2009, by swindlers who drew funds under the guise of recharging mobile numbers of hundreds of du and Etisalat subscribers.

As reported by the National on April 5, 2010, the phishing assault was noticed when Pravin Bakliwal, 51, was shocked to know that someone had laundered his account of Dh121, 000. In addition to this, an amount of Dh7,500 was charged to Bakliwal's credit card. He is of the opinion that the hackers almost drained out his account balance over the period of 14 days starting from December 1, 2009 seemingly to clear up 135 phone charges.

A car rental agent belonging to India, Pokattungal Abdul Savad, aged 33, is yet another customer who observed that on December 19 and 21, 2009, Dh38, 500 were deducted from his account. He said that neither had he spotted any of the cell phone numbers on the statement nor he replied to any suspicious looking e-mail. At present, he has nothing and don't know what to do further, as per the news published by The National on April 5, 2010.

Symantec, the online security firm, in January said that a major attack was made on a UAE bank along with some other banks in UAE which faced a minor attack in the earlier weeks. As a matter of rules, the firm did not mention the name of the bank.

As stated by the Symantec's Middle East security expert Bulent Teksoz, nothing much can be said in this case, but, reportedly, the victims had unwillingly visited the spiteful Web pages and hence became exposed to hackers, as per the news published by The National on April 5, 2010.

Lance Spitzner, another expert, also accepted that most likely, the naïve users were foxed through a phishing attack that connected them to a safe-looking website, as reported by The National on April 5, 2010.

On March 21, 2010, Abu Dhabi Police reported a similar attack, and warned the masses of the online fraud offers, which involved the bank accounts of people in the country.

Hence, the users are urged to keep a check on their accounts and withdrawal, and to immediately bring any suspicious transaction to the notice of the concerned authorities.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 4/15/2010