E-Bills: New Fish For Phishers
Emailed statements are the new tools of the phishers to catch preys. So,
one might be paying more than just the bill online.
Paying bills over the Internet is one of the fastest and easiest ways. But
it could cost the person in most unexpected ways. People using e-mailed
bill statements may be the fresh targets for phishing scams.
Phishing, which was a method to steal the private information about
consumers have taken up newer and larger form. What began as fake e-mails
requesting personal information has transformed into sophisticated
transactions, like fraudulent online bill payments.
According to Peter Cassidy of the "Anti-Phishing Working Group", the
e-mail could be convincing enough appearing exactly like the bill one is
used to receive. The fraud preys on someone's experience with the usual
process of bill payment.
Fraudsters, who send a link in the e-mail, take the user to a false login
page in a hope to get the user's personal information. If the user enters
his username and password, he might as well declare his bank account
number.
Phishing depends on some customers being vulnerable to every step in the
vicious plan. The customers get deceived by the content of the e-mail and
follow the directions in the e-mail to go to a spoofed website. The tricky
contents of the site take him to the instructions that extract username
and password. phishing has become the most popular technique information
collection to hack an account.
Phishing is not the only issue with e-statements. Sometimes, they get
trapped in 'spam filters' causing one to miss a payment.
Tom Carey, vice-president of MasterCard RPPS talks about the wide
availability of security measures in financial institutions to protect
E-bill payment. But this must be accompanied by educating new consumers
about the measures. He believes that once people understand the relevance
of the implemented security measures by their banks, , like 'zero
liability' and 'stronger authentication' methods, they will also be
benefited by the online bill payment like million others.
Related article: E-Crime Reporting Format To Be Launched in July
ยป SPAMfighter News - 9/27/2006
