RCMP Warns of Phishing E-mails Targeting Canadians

RCMP the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has issued an alert to the country's netizens that phishing e-mails are doing the rounds while posing as communications from an RCMP officer.

Elaborating the scam further, RCMP says that its e-mail normally seems as a message from an authorized company like a bank, while it politely requests for the recipient's information towards making his records up-to-date. The information asked reportedly relates to the user's Social Security number, PIN, credit card details alternatively certain bank account particulars.

Remarking about the problem, RCMP official Red Deer stated that they received numerous phone-calls regarding scams, with several relating to phishing, a term for fraud wherein bogus e-mails and fake websites were created for duping users into handing over precious personal information in theft by the scammers. Albertalocalnews.com published this on December 31, 2010.

Stated Cpl. Kathe DeHeer media liaison of RCMP, in the problem of phishing, fraudsters commonly targeted Internet shopping sites. Alberalocalnews.com published this on December 31, 2010. DeHeer added that cases had happened wherein scammers had overwritten an original browser bar with a false one that looked authentic, but when highlighted and clicked, it led surfers onto a phishing website.

Meanwhile, because of the maliciousness involved within such phishing campaigns, specialists associated with Internet safety outline certain suggestions for users to follow for keeping phishing at bay. First, they reiterate that a website of any genuine organization, firm, or agency doesn't ever request for users' private data over the Internet.

Secondly, users must deploy an anti-spam filter, which will effectively block phishing e-mails from entering their inboxes. Thirdly, if an e-mail coming to an end-user seems doubtful to him, then he should contact the bank or company which is claimed in the e-mail as the sender and cross-check the message's validity.

Ultimately, it's because of events similar to the RCMP phishing scam that Canada is witnessing a surge in phishing operations, just like Symantec the security company reported in its State of Spam and phishing Report of October 2010. In that, Symantec indicated that phishing lures in Canada had risen 4% during October 2010.

Related article: RCMP Alert Public against PayPal Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 1/11/2011