Warning regarding an Online Banking Scam issued by the Texas DPS

Warning about an online campaign targeting your banking information has been issued by the Texas DPS (Department of Public Safety). The source appears as it is from the CashPro service of Bank of America, and prompts user to enter the information. A tweet from cybersecurity team of the DPS cautioned that "the email and associated website looks convincing. BE AWARE!".

Aaron Blackstone, Chief Information Security Officer of DPS, said that "if one of us would click on it then obviously it's very sophisticated and we feel like we would need to warn someone. So, we kind of do a grading scale of one to 10, and that one was obviously a little more sophisticated so we felt the need to send it out".

Blackstone further said that DPS on a day-to-day basis is on receiving end of the phishing emails, sharing threats with the other agencies for bolstering the cybersecurity efforts of Texas.

Similar type of online phishing attempts take place more frequently during holiday season, said Blackstone. In fact holiday season is prime time for the fraudsters to do that as many people during this time buys items by doing online shopping, email gifts, etc. So during this time if someone received an email where the bank is notifying about issues with payment or issues with their credit card, then more often than not the people are going to click on the given links without worrying about anything (i.e. phishing attempts) and as a result may become victim of a phishing campaign.

As per Blackstone, out of millions of phishing emails which goes out every day, people click on the link as well as enter the name along with password approximately once in every 38 seconds. He said that it occur a lot more than they would like and they would like to think.

A few of the best online practices of Blackstone includes: incorporating the two-factor authentication, which is an additional layer of security for the online systems; using the password managers; and contacting the bank directly in case someone gets an email which says that there is some problem in the bank account.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/9/2019