BitDefender Discover Phishing Scam Targeting BoA Customers

Spam experts at BitDefender, an antivirus provider, are alerting customers of the Bank of America about a fresh e-mail scam circulating on the Internet, as reported by Softpedia on July 14, 2009.

The security vendor explains that the 'From' field of the fraudulent e-mail deceptively uses spoofed e-mail address of BoA while the e-mail's header project phrases like "Customer notification."

Furthermore, the e-mail's text says that BoA wishes to notify customers about the 'Bank of America Customer Form' that the institution has just made available for its accountholders. It also says that all the BoA customers need to fill in the given form.

Below the text of the phishing e-mail, there is an authentic-looking web-link. But users clicking on this link are not led to the banking website, but to a page registered with a .co.uk that resembles the actual BoA site.

Security researchers at BitDefender state that the cyber miscreants are trying to obtain financial information like credit card number, ID number, expiration date, Personal Identity Number (PIN), e-mail ID as well as full name from the unsuspecting BoA accountholders.

With these details, the criminals could easily steal users' identity and commit credit card frauds, the researchers further said.

The phishers trying to lend a legitimate and authentic look to their fraudulent e-mail have embedded the BoA logo as well as included the trivial particulars from the actual website.

Unlike other phishers, the present scammers appear to be more preoccupied in making their conning attempts more credible and in devoting time towards designing a dialog box, which notifies duped users that they can log out automatically or access the bank's homepage.

Nevertheless, customers who seek security authentication techniques like locked padlock and the 'https' suffix, or specific security components such as Secure Socket Layer ( SSL) encryption, would find none of them on the copycat page.

In fact, phishing attack against BoA is not new. In June 2009, a same kind of assault hit the 'Direct' program of BoA. Meanwhile, BitDefender's 2009 E-Threats Landscape Report suggests that BoA is the No.1 spoofed bank worldwide.

Related article: BitDefender Releases March malware List

» SPAMfighter News - 8/1/2009