AppRiver Detects Phishing Scam Targeting Paypal

According to AppRiver a security company, one fresh phishing e-mail campaign that aims at exploiting users of PayPal is presently doing the rounds online.

Explaining this fresh e-mail campaign, AppRiver said that it was a little different from conventional phishing e-mail campaigns because it sent the malevolent web-page in the form of a file attached to an e-mail instead of a web-link embedded on its message body. Opening the attachment the user landed on a phishing website, which looked exactly same as the PayPal site, and if that user entered any information there it went straight to the phishers.

Thereafter armed with the stolen PayPal credentials, the scammers could move cash from the hijacked PayPal account to some other account. Subsequently, they could make purchases with that cash, request more money as credit to that account, and possibly carry out all that which the actual owner of the PayPal account could in general do with it.

Meanwhile, it isn't only AppRiver that's reporting about phishing campaigns attacking PayPal users. Recently, Avira an anti-virus firm in Germany too reported detecting a similar type of e-mail campaign.

Notably, cyber-criminals have long targeted the PayPal website. In fact, Avira lately revealed that PayPal continued to be that brand which was most phished online as it encountered 57.25% of the total number of phishing assaults spotted during October 2010.

Thus, security specialists from both AppRiver and Avira cautioned Web-users that over the approaching months, they might face scammers' target much more widely in light of heightened buying activities by them. Since, during the holidays, people in general would be purchasing a lot more via their debit and/or credit cards, any fraud on such cards was chanced to be less noted, the specialists observed.

As a result, the specialists recommended netizens that they should maintain account of all purchases they made over the current holiday season.

In the end, they suggested end-users to spare web-links from clicking when they received them through unsolicited e-mails as well as to never view doubtful attachments. Additionally, they must deploy high-quality programs for their computers' security, the specialists advised.

Related article: AppRiver Reports Security Trends for November 2008

» SPAMfighter News - 11/25/2010