Cox Communications’ Customers Get Warning of Phishing E-mail Scam

Cox Communications (Atlanta USA) has asked its customers in Arizona to be careful of a fake e-mail that deceives customers into giving away their personal information.

The e-mail discloses that cox.net, an e-mail account system of Cox, is under upgradation process to incorporate spam protector. To accomplish this task, customers are instructed by the e-mail to verify their personal information, including username and password, within two weeks of getting the notification.

Moreover, the e-mail threats the customers that their accounts will be permanently terminated if they don't transmit the information within two weeks.

According to security experts, this practice of extracting customers' personal information is called phishing and people behind such scams use it for their malicious intent. They further warn that phishing scams have become more common now-a-days and criminals should remain cautious of such attacks.

Steve Simon, residing in Fountain Hills (Arizona), has received such a threatening e-mail, as reported by abc15 on June 23, 2009. Steve said that soon after receiving the e-mail, he recognized that something was wrong and contacted Cox. A Cox official clarified that they did not dispatch the e-mail and it was surely a scam. He further asked the customers to forward the e-mails to the phishing e-mail department.

Steve also said that he received bulk of such types of e-mails and he felt extremely anguish to know that some selfish people tried to garner maximum advantage from innocent users.

Meanwhile, the communication company has made it clear that it doesn't send e-mail requesting for customers' personal information. Security researchers at Cox are also trying to find out the perpetrators running this scam.

Thus, the company's officials have suggested to customers that they should not send reply to any e-mail asking for date of birth, social security number, passwords and other sensitive personal information. If anyone gets a fraudulent e-mail, then he should immediately report it to FBI.

This is not the first time when criminals have used the name of Cox in a scam. For instance, Cox customers in January 2005 received the fake e-mails that asked for their credit card number and PIN in the pretext of account upgradation.

» SPAMfighter News - 30-06-2009

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