Phishers Turn Heat On Australian Taxpayers

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has released a caveat against the phishing e-mails being distributed presently and asserting to be from the tax office.

The alleged e-mail falsely utilizes the ATO emblem and accompanies the terms 'Australian Taxation Office - Please Peruse' in the topic line. Arrogating to get a return from the ATO, the e-mail requests end-users to click open a link that takes the user to a fake site according to Arnnet's April 19, 2007 issue.

It is imperative for a person dealing his tax matters through a PC or the net or e-commerce systems to handle tax office matters, in that case he or she should have knowledge of phishing.

Australian authorities and financial organizations will not normally dispatch unwelcome junk emails asking the user to upgrade his or her confidential or fiscal information.

"Users should be cautious of unwanted junk emails declaring to have come from the Tax Office. The Tax Office won't ever transmit e-mails to taxpayers requesting them to give confidential details together with bank card information," stated Greg Farr, ATO's Second Commissioner, as reported by Arnnet on April 19, 2007.

The Australian Government is collaborating with the Australian finance sector to attack phishers who exploit fake emails to dupe net banking and finance clients and indict offenders mired in cyber-crimes concerned with tricking online banking clients paying their taxes.

As per CA Pacific, the IT management software marketer, the phisher hasn't tried to modify the Internet site's actual URL. Till now three types of the phishing sites have been described, with one utilizing a URL listed in Holland, while others exploiting a URL in France.

"After a customer has opened up a link within the spam email, it may not be instantly apparent to them that they have arrived at a keyword thieving site," alleged Chris Thomas, CA Pacific's Security Solution Strategist.

Simultaneously in 2006, the Australian Tax Office has limited entrée to its site after finding that a "a handful" of tax agents have been contaminated by a malware, that has "robbed" their user identifications and access codes, as issued in Zdnet's March 2006 edition.

Related article: Phishers Expand Their Sphere of Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 4/27/2007