Barclay’s Clients Targeted with Phishing E-mail Claiming Important Security Alert

Barclay Bank's clients are being advised for remaining vigilant about scam e-mails that tell them there's an important security message inside their inbox, thus published softpedia.com dated March 4, 2013.

It maybe noted that the British multinational company Barclays, which provides financial and banking facilities, has its main branch in London, UK.

Displaying the header, "You Have An Urgent Security Message!!!" the fake electronic mails apparently show the sender's address as alerts@barclays.co.uk, which nevertheless, is spoofed.

Also, if receivers follow the embedded web-links inside the scam messages, they get led onto one hijacked site that harbors one craftily-created Barclay's spoofed web-page. Here, victims are asked for entering various kinds of personal as well as financial details.

One likewise version of this spoofed web-page appeared online way-back during April 2012 wherein users were deceptively taken onto a malicious website through phishing electronic mails that notified them regarding an operation of security-maintenance.

But, the current version tries to sound genuine so the crooks supply a security alert too wherein users are informed they'll never get requested to provide their Personal Identification Numbers or passwords through e-mail, phone, letter or text, remark analysts studying the currently spreading phishing scam.

Moreover, authorities from Barclays Bank remarked that scammers were getting more-and-more sophisticated, with several fraudulent e-mails appearing highly persuasive by using well-known brand-names similar to Barclays within the above-discussed instance.

Additionally, Barclays, while indicating it had nothing to do with the scam e-mail, posted online that it wouldn't ever request clients for revealing personal account or security details through the above manner. Therefore, they mustn't ever provide each-and-every security information associated with them to anybody whether through writing, phone, Internet or in person, no matter who the person represented. Barclays would request to give only selected info during phone or Internet-banking, not to provide each-and-every of its clients' information. Hence the above scam e-mails must simply be deleted.

Furthermore, a similar scam e-mail surge targeted USA-based Citi Group's customers, during February 2013. Those e-mails, talking about some security message awaiting clients to read, when clicked, in reality dropped malware onto users' computers that grabbed their passwords.

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