Customers of Electric Ireland Hit by Scam Emails

Irishmirror.ie reported on 18th November, 2015, stating that many customers of Electric Ireland across the country have been sent e-mails as part of a phishing email campaign.

The e-mails which appear to be from the utility company, offer the customers a refund of money, which has already been paid by them.

Customers are asked to submit their scanned passport copy and bank details to obtain their refund.

Breakingnews.ie published news on 18th November, 2015, quoting a Spokesman on behalf of the company, as saying "This email was not sent by Electric Ireland and we are advising those who received this email not to respond or click on the link in the email. We would urge any customer, who might have completed the form, to contact their bank or debit card company at the earliest by using the phone number mentioned on the back of the debit card. We also advise such customers to immediately change their password for their online billing account".

Electric Ireland mentioned that database containing customers personal details are safe, and are not compromised.

It added that its IT department is investigating, and it has reported the matter to the Gardai.

Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation said in a statement that they have warned the people not to react to those emails.

Breakingnews.ie published news on 18th November, 2015, quoting a Spokesman of Garda, as saying "The Bureau is receiving reports daily regarding the theft of money from personal bank account of customers. Criminal organizations are sending these emails posing as a bank requesting customers to login with all their details including security codes, mobile numbers and passwords".

While analyzing the scam emails, security experts informed that unfortunately Electric Ireland is not the only company, which has been targeted recently by cyber criminals.

British Gas, provider of UK energy, makes contact with 2200 customers to inform them that their passwords might have been exposed. Apparently after a breach of password, Pastebin, the popular data dumping site showed the affected users email addresses and passwords.

If those are valid passwords, then the crooks who downloaded the dumped password data have almost surely retrieved additional personal information, like account history, by simply logging in to each account.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/26/2015