Internet Banking Frauds Rising Exceptionally

Internet banking frauds spiked at an unprecedented pace over the last two months, reported Herald Online on 26 March 2007 as per the news published on Busrep

Andre Horak - the head of Commercial Crimes unit of Port Elizabeth - said that 30 incidents of cyber fraud, inflicting above $109,437.64, were opened since February this year. This was reportedly more than 50% of active cases (59), costing above $410391 the investigators of Horak were already working on.

The Herald has just found out at least 6 people, clients of First National Bank, who became victim of Internet bank fraud last week.

The perpetrator pretending to be from this bank asked the customers to confirm their identification numbers, pin, password, and credit card account numbers, Moneyweb published on 28 March 2007.

Given below is the description of the trick fraudsters used to obtain personal information about he clients of First National Bank.

"Dear Customer,

Absa is continuously working towards increasing the security for all users making use of Internet banking. For ensuring our online payment system's integrity, we review the accounts from time to time. Your account could be restricted owing to several login attempts. Although the payment can still be received in restricted accounts, they're limited in their ability of sending or withdrawing funds. In order to raise this restriction, you're supposed to confirm your details for Internet banking.

Click on the link given below and kindly confirm the same.

https://ib.absa.co.za/ib/logon/ib.jsp"

Right after the user clicks on the link provided in the mail, a pop-up window might appear asking him to key in his Internet banking sign-on and credit-card information. This dialog box usually appears before a website that's identical to that of the bank.

FNB (First National Bank) has informed that some email even threatened to suspend or even close the accounts of their clients in case they didn't take timely action by keying in personal details to the respective bank.

A woman from Port Elizabeth said that above $820.625 were transferred electronically from her FNB account in last week. She said that she's fortunate to have an SMS alert on her account, therefore she got immediate notification following which she contacted her bank to stop all transactions from her account.

There're other cases too, wherein the Internet bank perpetrators victimized people.

Related article: Internet Threat Volumes Overwhelm Security Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 4/4/2007