Phishing Attack on Alliance and Leicester
Phishing Attack on Alliance and LeicesterOne of the greatest fears of any ecommerce department in financial services is fraud. I'm sure we've all seen emails coming from companies who we have no relationship saying log on and check your account – I've had several from Bank of America recently.
The usual process is that the “fake” site uses the targeted bank's actual domain e.g. www.bankofengland.com but the underlying href points to a dummy site e.g. www.iwanttostealyourmoney.com. Those people in the early days who were not that internet savvy fell victim to such attacks. Now thanks to good education and constant warning messages from the banks – these emails, whilst annoy and damaging to the brand, are not as much of a problem as before.
Until now,
The scammers have devised another way of extracting money from the unaware. Reported in The Times today (A&L is a target of a new phishing line). The fake website is asking you to deposit £500 when opening a new online account and as a result the bank will give you £200. Now at first glance that may seem a fantastic offer but, have you ever tried getting any money out of a bank? Refund of bank charges etc. So is it really likely that a bank – who do not make £200 of profit on a new bank account – will give that money to someone to open an account when it will take many months even years to recoup those figures..
