New Phishing E-mail Attacks Customers of ANZ Bank

ANZ Bank of Australia has issued a warning to its customers to look out for phishing e-mails from a new scam that is targeting the bank's customers, as reported by SCMagazine on April 7, 2008.

Elaborating on the phishing e-mail, the bank said that it addresses ANZ customers and tries to scare account holders who think that somebody tampered with their account.

According to a bank official, the message says that some unusual behavior was noticed with the recipient's online account that suggested some third party might have gained access or control over his/her information. Also, attempts were noticed of logging into the recipient's ANZ account from an overseas IP address.

Further, the e-mail asks the reader to confirm and restore his/her account particulars by clicking on a given link. But, when customers do that they are taken to a counterfeit ANZ Internet Banking logon Web page. On this, ANZ Bank warns that if users type in their details, their account information might be seized.

However, according to the bank, it never contacts to its customers online to submit their private information. The bank also reminded that most hoax e-mails typically have grammatical errors or poor spelling and are not personalized.

In an alert notice on its site, the bank has asked its customers to avoid clicking on the link whatever the situation might be. Also, they should not respond to the message by providing the requested information.

Further, the bank advises to its customers that they should log onto the ANZ Banking service only by typing www.anz.com into the browser's address bar instead of following links to reach the ANZ website.

Meanwhile, recently there has been a rapid increase in phishing attacks aimed at banks and other financial organizations in different countries.

In news similar to the above, one more Australian bank, St. George Bank, reported, on April 2, 2008, a fraudulent e-mail that has been circulating in the name of the bank and asking customers to give their online banking details. According to the bank, the scam's objective was to gather users' information to hack into their bank accounts for stealing money.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 4/11/2008