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Fake Tax-Reimbursement E-Mails Target Malaysia

The IRB (Inland Revenue Board), Malaysia has warned citizens about phishing e-mails purporting to promise tax reimbursements, as starting July 21, 2010 there've been reports of 217 such cases from people who paid taxes.

Said Tan Sri Hasmah Abdullah, Director-General of IRB, based on the investigations conducted, it had been found that the e-mails came from fraudulent, phishing websites. Malysinewsyahoo.com published this on August 19, 2010.

The Director-General felt that the phishing e-mails emerged due to large sums of tax reimbursement estimates that was RM2,812 compared to the earlier RM700.

Speaking to the media on August 19, 2010, Hasmah Abdullah stated that the e-mails got dispatched from certain quarters abusing the IRB's tax reimbursement to citizens. A study of the phishing complaints got revealed that the victims in addition to being the taxpayers also included those who didn't submit their returns to IRB, the Director-General said.

He further said that the fake messages had logos of Public Bank and CIMB Bank in a given web-link. They told the recipients that they must follow the link to find the logos but the link instead diverted them onto a spoofed IRB website which asked them to access personal Internet banking accounts.

Suggested Hasmah Abdullah, people mustn't fall for such tricks, especially because legitimate IRB e-mails didn't contain web-links. The tax agency didn't inform citizens about tax refunds via electronic mails. Instead, such information was sent in an official letter via the post.

Meanwhile, in an associated event, Head of the Cyber and Multimedia Investigation Unit, ACP Mohammad Kamarudin Md Din from the Royal Malaysian Police's Commercial Division recommended that citizens must remain watchful while conducting online banking so that they don't become victims of phishing websites. Malaysinewsyahoo.com reported this.

Additionally Kamarudin Md Din said that police didn't waive off the probability about several online-crime instances that syndicates operating from Nigeria and the U.S, master-minded. During 2010 alone, there had been 139 phishing complaints reported to police that resulted in losses amounting RM400,827 (USD126,862).

The ACP as well cautioned that phishing, apart from being executed via e-mails, could be launched via social-networking websites like Facebook too.

Related article: Fake Spam Mail Announces Australian PM’s Heart Attack

» SPAMfighter News - 8/25/2010

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