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Phishing Scams Rise Across Malaysia Following Escalated Internet-Banking Users

The HSBC Bank Malaysia Berhad has reported that there's a growing number of Malaysians adopting Internet banking, nevertheless, owing to this, there's also a growing number of Internet frauds like phishing in the country. Thestar.com.my reported this on February 19, 2011.

In one case, 41-year-old Safura Mokhtar a Travel Agent recently was victimized with a phishing campaign at the time an email came to her in November 2010 asserting that it was from HSBC Bank.

The e-mail, according to Safura, said that she required logging in instantly for making her contact information up-to-date owing to security reasons. There was also a web-link in the e-mail that Safura unwittingly hit. She added that since she hadn't conducted online banking before, she didn't know about the existence of such scams. Thestar.com.my reported this. Safura, after some time, got intimation from HSBC that there'd been a money-transfer from her account.

And though she fast reported the episode to the bank, the latter dismissed the idea of refunding her.

But, the bank passed her case to FMB (Financial Mediation Bureau), a body working independently towards assisting resolve disputes amongst end-users, similar to Mokhtar in the current instance, and the suppliers of financial services from whom they benefited, similar to HSBC in the current instance. FNB reportedly told Safura that the time-span for the investigations would be no more than 6-months.

Worryingly, according to Malaysia's cyber-security division, CyberSecurity Malaysia, in 2010, there were 1,426 phishing incidents against 634 reported during 2009. The division then noted that 900 or more phishing websites had been detected that attacked area financial institutions.

Meanwhile, FMB outlined that people who became victimized were normally fresh owners of online-banking accounts along with people who didn't comprehend online safety.

Hence, as suggestions for avoiding phishing assaults, users require remembering that banks don't dispatch e-mails to clients asking for confirming their account details. Moreover, they mustn't follow a web-link within any dubious e-mail rather they should examine the included URL address carefully prior to hitting the link.

Finally, any user getting an e-mail soliciting personal Internet banking information must notify his bank about it for verification.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

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