New Zealand Scammers take People on Phishing Trips

Trips to phishing in New Zealand are getting ever more popular this summer. Industry experts warn that with highly sophisticated scams that appear more convincing, phishing attacks in New Zealand are increasing.

According to Mark Cocker, Executive Director of Netsafe, people would find it difficult to believe when they learn about the height of sophistication some phishing attacks have adopted. Home.nxcity.co.nz published this in news on November 30, 2007.

Cocker also mentions that there exist some very accurate copies of e-mails and Websites that are fooling and exploiting the most unsuspecting people. He says a lot of money that is being churned from organized e-crime far exceeds that from illicit drug trade.

Phishing scams are getting more believable, Cocker said in a statement that Scoop.co.nz published on November 30, 2007. The earlier type of phishing e-mails today appear more convincing and an infrastructure that is highly sophisticated support the scams. Many obvious signs of typical phishing e-mail like spelling errors and bad grammar are no longer there making the fraudulent e-mails appear more credible, Cocker analyses.

Nevertheless, the same lesson applies for dealing with a message whether it is from a shopping, bank or trading site, i.e., abandoning an e-mail that asks for private details.

While the number of phishing e-mails is mounting, their attack frequency is also increasing. Figures from Westpac indicated that although the attacks had become subdued during 2006 and early days of 2007, the assaults are again heating up with the need to shut down each fake site by the anti-phishing service of the bank. During October-November, the bank had been targeted in 11 separate incidents. In 2006, it suffered attacks on an average of two in a month.

According to Stu Woollett, Head of e-business, while Australian banks are targets of much of the phishing business in Australasia, Westpac NZ, much like other banks in NZ, gets targeted repeatedly. Scoop.co.nz published this.

Woollett said that Westpac was quite in a favorable position to thwart phishers' business and protect customers with its online guarantee system. Still, customers themselves also should be more wary to remain protected.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 12/13/2007