Phishing Scam Victimizes Ventura Inhabitants

A hacker from Philippines according to Vcstar.com dated March 28, 2011, compromised the Internet system for payment through credit cards in Ventura County (California, USA), so malicious electronic mails could go out to numerous inhabitants utilizing the system for making the property tax payment of 2007.

Actually, an error was noticed within the WebTax system that the Office of Tax Collector detected. The error caused the dispatch of fake e-mails to individuals when they carried out online payments at the County. However, experts fixed the error's origin on March 27, 2011.

Says Steven Hintz Collector of Treasurer Tax, the hacker obtained numerous e-mails from the public that utilized Epay-it.com during 2007 following which he crafted fake e-mails and sent them via return mail, while spoofing them as though they originated out of the Web-administrator's address in Ventura. Vcstar.com reported this.

Stated Hintz, the e-mails showed the header "ePay Confirmation of Internet Payment" with county.websitecoordinator@ventura.org as the sender's id, which was an authentic County id. The main text told the recipient that the transaction he conducted stood fulfilled. But incase he had any query about his payment, he could contact the Office of 2007 WebTax, the text added, while a web-link was found as given.

Meanwhile, a victim of the e-mail scam told aolanswers.com on March 28, 2011 that he'd been getting several messages online about one payment through credit card that was made to the Office of WebTax for 2007. And when he fed the URL-address, which was the origin of the e-mail, he found an alert pop up cautioning that the Internet site could be another website for phishing, he recalled.

However, the Tax collector of Ventura urged people to overlook the spam mails. Moreover, they must neither forward nor reply to the messages. Users must further, constantly review their credit card and bank statements for any unauthorized transaction that if occurs they should request the institution for appending an alert for fraud to their accounts, the Tax-collector added. Stanrector.com reported this on March 28, 2011.

The County IT, meanwhile, had stopped all future access by the hacker to Epay-it.com, Hintz said.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

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