People’s State Bank Issues Phishing Alert

According to Executive Vice-President of People's State Bank - Johnny Lindsey, the bank's branch in Ellettsville (US) is the latest target of phishers, as reported by TMCnet on March 28, 2009.

Both accountholders and non-accountholders are receiving the same e-mail message, according to reports. Moreover, the e-mails are unsolicited whose content starts by addressing the recipient as "Dear Customer". It then says that there is a new notification for the recipient.

Links are also provided in the phishing e-mail. But on clicking them, the Bank officials say, the user is led to a website that appears like the official website of People's State Bank, but in reality, it is a fake. Phishers have designed this website to steal user's online banking account number, username, password, and other private details.

However, the Bank informs its consumers that they have not sent the fraudulent e-mail and it wouldn't ever request for such personal details by e-mail.

The Bank also posted a message on its official website saying it wants to help consumers in safeguarding against e-mail fraud which, according to the institution, is a very common and destructive technique employed to scam users online today.

Furthermore, the Bank listed some simple guidelines for its customers so that they can protect themselves from such kinds of phishing attacks. One of the tips state that prior to entering sensitive information on any online site, the user must check if the website's address has the letter 's' in https:// or check if the padlock appears within the status bar of the browser. If these are absent, it means the website is a phishing site.

Meanwhile, the Bank assured accountholders that their card and account details remain safe provided they don't reply to the phishing e-mail with any of their private information.

Nevertheless, if any customer doubts that someone has indeed compromised his information, then he should immediately notify the Bank as well as forward the suspicious e-mail to it.

Notably, in February 2009, a similar phishing scam had targeted People's State Bank when a number of its consumers received unsolicited e-mails sent by the phishers.

Related article: Paypal – Web Hosting Services Need To Work Hard To Tackle Phishing

» SPAMfighter News - 4/2/2009