Czech Banks Work Hard To Prevent Hackers

Czech banks were hit by three major electronic attacks since August 2006 that proved harmful for thousands of their clients. The banks continued to fight on November 30, 2006 to save their online services from miscreants' activities. The 'Czech National Bank' (CNB), country's apex bank, released a safeguard list containing 17 points to aid an estimated 1.6 million Czech customers who use 'web-based banking services'.

The e-mails that claim to be from banks and credit card companies. They lead people to fraudulent websites that look similar to legitimate sites such as the 'Royal Bank of Canada'. The phony sites then lure people to give in their passwords and account numbers.

Following these attacks, banks have been increasingly asserting on 'defensive steps' for 'account holders'. Commercial banks especially made efforts to caution customers about spammers, hyperlinks, phishers, unencrypted websites and other dangers thriving on the Net. The banks repeatedly sent 'warning' e-mails to their customers in an effort to make them aware of phony websites. For e.g., a Prague newspaper towards the end of November published about a 'phishing' scam aimed at Czech clients of Citibank.

In October 2006, Czech police broke into a phishing scam that came down on thousands of 'Ceske Sporitelna' online customers.

According to a warning by CNB, the safety and security of every 'long distance account' does not depend only on how much secure is the bank's 'central information system'. It also relates to the care and attention that individual clients give to Internet security.

Although the bank officials said that Czech clients were not at any risk, the bank's website displayed a pop-up warning, on November 30, 2006, against tricky e-mails delivered by 'phishers'. To this effect, Citibank featured a new 'security system' for its online customers in November.

The day the bank issued a new 'account security system' coincided with the scammers' attack that sent mass e-mails hoping to obtain personal data of the receivers. CNB added a footnote to its warning saying that clients remain constantly on track of information and recommendations for 'Internet banking security' that their particular bank issued.

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» SPAMfighter News - 12/5/2006