OFWs Warned against E-mail Address Stealing Phishing Scam

OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers), their friends and family members have been warned by an e-mail against a phishing scam in which passwords and e-mail addresses are captured for financial gain.

A number of stolen e-mail addresses cases has been reported wherein an unknown person after joining a social networking site, where an e-mail password is required, captured the address. For instance, a Malaysia-based OFW narrowly escaped to become the victim of this scam. He disclosed that while chatting on Yahoo Messenger with a friend from the Philippines, he was asked to click on a link, which takes to a social networking site requesting for his Yahoo mail ID. He followed the directions given by his friend without giving a second thought, assuming that he talking to a closed friend.

After few hours, his friend replied with a text message asking where he can purchase prepaid roaming phone cards. These cards cost a huge amount of Php50,000 and wished to sell them to another Filipinos in Malaysia with profit.

He immediately cancelled the transaction after realizing that his friend was deceiving him and that he was victimized by hacker. Later, he found that his e-mail account was compromised and the hacker was trying to make money by exploiting the opportunity.

According to an IT specialist, the hacker got an idea of asking e-mail address from social networking Websites that look for e-mail account passwords. Hacker created a fake social site resembling the genuine site to collect Users' e-mail addresses and passwords.

Earlier, the Philippines government warned OFWs against international e-mail scams after concerns raised by various organizations, including media, law enforcement agencies and other authorities. OFWs were asked to take precautions while dealing with personal information online.

Meanwhile, officials have advised online users to use separate password on any site. They suggested that users should have two passwords - one for e-mail and the other password for other purposes. They also advised users to contact the person living in the same country through phone instead chatting online about important matters such as financial transactions.

Related article: Office Computers Highly Vulnerable to malware Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 10/10/2008