ANZ Bank Cautions Customers against Bogus Form

ANZ Bank in Australia has issued an alert to its customers to watch out for a fake website generated by a virus hiding in the victim's PC. This website, according to the bank, allegedly presents a form asking the accountholder to submit personal information.

A bank spokesperson said that the form would emerge on the screens of only those PCs that were infected with the virus. However, the ANZ computer system had not been infected.

The virus, designed as Trojan horse, installs malicious software on customers' PCs and employs keylogging software to intercept the letters and numbers typed in, said Mark Gregory Program Director of Network Engineering at RMIT University, as reported by smh on February 5, 2009.

Gregory added, once the Trojan virus records the specific letters and numbers like those framing the URL address of an online banking site, it makes its way into the computer's browser where it creates a hoax page. Subsequently, when an unsuspecting user enters his data on this fake page, it transmits to the criminals at some remote location.

Security specialists stated that this method is an advanced way of capturing information to commit identity fraud. They also revealed that the Trojan affected the banking activities and impacted some ANZ accountholders who accessed ANZ online banking.

But Gregory says that the problem is not confined to ANZ Bank. If the bank is making the problem public, then the attack might hit numerous other websites as well.

Meantime, the bank confirmed that it had identified the problem early and said that it was ensuring that its customers also knew of the problem. It further stated that ANZ would closely monitor the situation as well as post appropriate notices for its online banking consumers.

Gregory further said that to avoid the virus infection, computer users need to deploy sophisticated antivirus. He also cautioned them to remain aware of any addition or deletion on Internet banking sites.

The Director suggested people to contact the bank if they find anything unusual on the institution's website. Moreover, for clearing any doubts, ANZ customers could call the help-desk at 0800-368-524.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/20/2009