Phishing Scam Hit Another Missouri Bank

Spammers are phishing on people by using Boone County National Bank's logo in e-mail that directs recipients to follow a link and provides personal information, as reported by
cloumbiatribune on June 10, 2008

The news disclosed online said that the e-mail message, which uses the subject title "Notice", tells the recipient that he could view his bank account statement by clicking on a given link meant for accessing the document.

Reports further said that despite the use of correct spelling of Boone County National Bank in the embedded logo, the message actually spells County, wrongly as Country.

Meanwhile, as the news of phishing fraud spread that struck the bank , Vice President of Marketing, Boone County National Bank, Mary Wilkerson, said that such phishing scams had not been considered so important few years back. However, she said that the bank is continuously working with its customers to raise awareness of the scam and to advise on ways to avert them, as reported by Columbiatribune on June 10, 2008.

Wilkerson further said that they were lucky to halt the attacks. However, according to her, some customers continue to be vulnerable to the fraudulent e-mail asking for confirmation of the recipient's account number as well as other information. Wilkerson added that the phishing message appeared very authentic and legitimate.

And while, the attack on Boone County National Bank is the most recent case of a bank being targeted in Missouri, another scam, reported in the early days of May 2008, was against Central Missouri Bank. In that, the phishers used the Srizbi botnet to wage similar attacks against accountholders.

Meanwhile, security experts and analysts describe phishing as an escalating problem shaking financial institutions such as banks and other financial firms because institutions' databases tempt spammers to launch the phishing assaults through botnets or simple e-mails.

However, in the recent phishing case, Wilkerson suggested that customers, who get suspicious e-mail, contact the customer service of the bank or forward the messages to report_phishing@centralbankcompany.com or customer_service@boonebank.com.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 6/26/2008