Customers of O2 Attacked by Phishing Email Campaign

Cable.co.uk reported on 2nd June, 2014 stating that customers of O2, an Internet service provider with its headquarters at Berkshire, United Kingdom, have been warned of a phishing email scam which can steal their details of identity.

Scam emails purporting to be from the telecommunications provider (referring to O2) sent out to consumers warning them about their unusual large accumulation of bill amount.

However, O2 has confirmed that it has sent no such emails to its consumers and these emails contain a dangerous program.

The email reads as "view your bill" contains a link and if the recipient clicks on the link, the dangerous program will be transmitted to the computer.

O2 commented that malware can be used for multiple things - for example, it could record your keystrokes enabling criminals to compose together personal information and login details for other sites.

Consumers were told that obviously these emails are not genuine because these are addressed to recipients as "Dear Customer".

O2 confirmed that it always addresses customers by name without fail at the time of sending bills to them.

The company advised that anyone who receives such emails should never click on any links and must forward it to phishing@o2.com before deleting it.

Analysts comment that the alarming surge in phishing over the Internet is due to such scam email campaigns of the above type.

Moreover, it is not the first time that customers of O2 have been attacked by cybercriminals in a phishing email campaign as in February 2013, security experts spotted attacks by criminals on innocent Internet users trying to gather their credentials by sending them bogus O2 bill notification.

The fake emails with subject line "Your bill (204.00 POUND) read as: "Dear Customer, our system shows your bill of 204.00 POUND is due and ready to view online. This might be an error from our server and you will be required to update your details again. Please download the document attached to this email and confirm your recent bill."

The email had nothing to do with O2 and if users downloaded and opened the document, they were asked to provide their account credentials and other personal information on a form.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/12/2014