Spammers Target Church and Charity

Christian Aid, a church-based charity organization has put on guard its supporters about e-mails that claim to come from account departments of different church-based charity agencies as well as charity agencies of other kinds. These phishing mails ask recipients to disclose their personal information including bank details to make donations. The mails also deceptively note recipients that they had won lotteries that were being shuffled by a charity agency.

Christian Aid explains that they don't make any cash awards of this kind, and so this type of intimations is bogus. It advises that under no circumstances should people register their details with senders of such mails. Christian Aid assumed that it was doing everything to notify the appropriate authorities and also following up with hosting providers wherever identification was possible, but it cannot say for sure that it can prevent circulation of such communications.

Hurricane Katrina Project also experienced such phishing attacks lately. An individual in Miami Florida has been found to relay phishing kits and templates used to trick people into divulging their bank accounts and selling it to online criminals.

According to concerned relief and development organizations, these spam e-mails have content like "we are having difficulties processing your donation", "you need to re-register your personal data," or "our supporter database is not recognizing your account details."

Phishing mails can be treated in better ways than just deleting them. For e.g., the 'report spam' option in the mailbox can be used. Some organizations welcome reports about phishing suspects. One such organization is 'Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination' (PIRT) to which notification of such e-mails can be sent to pirt@castlecops.com. Also bogus mails that come from eBay and PayPal can be sent to spoof@ebay.com and spoof@paypal.com respectively.

Moreover users are advised not to reply to such phishing mails as it will make the spammers sure that the e-mail address is active, which could encourage more spam. Christian Aid is directing its supporters as "please simply delete the message." But anti-fraud activists believe that recipients can react more positively in treating to prevent further flow, if they have the time and inclination.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 8/26/2006