Phishing is the Main Menace to Online Banking

As per the First National Bank (FNB) Online CEO Lee-Anne van Zyl, phishing has turned out as more refined and private, as per the news by BUSINESSLIVE on March 29, 2011.

Lee-Anne van Zyl stated that hackers have become very careful about the activities in banks. They take undue advantage of various events used by banks for promotion or other official messages as a strategy to gain the confidence of the intended victims, as per the reports by MyBroadband.co.za on March 29, 2011.

Now and earlier also, blanket mails are posted with the aim that a number of these recipients will recognize the message. Messages of these kinds are generally like 'Bank X wants you to provide user's data to prevent user's account being closed'. It makes no difference to the hacker that 75% (based on an equal market share of the big 4 banks) of the recipients use other banks.

Van Zyl added that anti phishing software and public awareness are the major defenses. FNB, other banks and South Africa (SA) Banking Risk Information Centre have always said that the banks will never ask to provide your login and password details. Moreover, there is an improvement in public awareness, as per the news by BUSINESSLIVE on March 29, 2011.

Further, some people claims of having no connection with Bank X. Hackers take care of this message and personalize accordingly their future mails.

She stated that hackers must never respond to mails that require them to provide their private details or that threaten to close their accounts if secret information is not given. She gave the assurance that FNB would never inquire about private information via email.

Van Zyl states that phishing has not been checked absolutely in its present form. She added that we can still witness phishing in the coming years.

As per Van Zyl, phishing sites had become so refined that customers could be easily cheated. But, you used to be able to just look at a phishing site and notice that something was wrong- there were spelling mistakes and typing errors, as per the news in BUSINESSLIVE on March 29, 2011.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

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