People who fall for "phishing"

bridiej

Natwest have apparently suspended their internet banking due to their customers being duped into giving personal details by dodgy emails.

Do people really fall for that?

Jay-Jay_4

Oh !!!!!!!!!!

I only signed up for that last week

They have a lot of spiel on the site about not giving your details out but I suppose some people wouldn't read it :-/

bridiej

I only signed up for that last week  :(

worldtraveller

..I don't believe that they suspended the full service, only the opening or modifying of third party payments (ie transfers to another bank account). I've been using the service for about 2 years now and they do this fairly regularly in most months, generally when there is a new "phish" around. Apart from that I find the service pretty good and useful.

webmasterpolo

If customers fall for it surely they are breaching the terms and conditions of not taking care of their security and account info and therefore get nothing from the bank. If the customer can fall for that then what the hell are they doing banking on the internet ???

I just got one to update my paypal account, lol l don't even use paypal, forwarded it onto spoof@paypal.com who just replied saying thanks, it was a fake email.....yeah l knew that hence why l sent it to the spoof dept....no mention of them closing down the side or tracking the culrprits. Probably cheaper to ignore them until they become a bigger problem.

bridiej

I wonder if these are the same people on Watchdog every week complaining that the RRP £3,000 diamond ring they bought on auction tv for £100 is only worth £30?

Maybe I'm being mean, but it just seems untrue...

svmitche

I wonder why Natwest in particular made the news? As far as I know the phising is constantly going on and all banks are targetted. Is it simply because they shut down part of their banking or what?

I too am surprised that people fall for this, but then people still fall for the eBay scam too.

paulcdb

just shows how many stupid people there are...

i mean how many are falling for postal, scratch card and other scams? sometimes wonder what world people are in... not like its not in all the papers and on tv, but then how many of them still running without anti-virus, etc ???

System

just shows how many stupid people there are...

Yes, and they are mostly employed by the banks.

I want to be able to check my balance and see statements online.
I want to make payments online, but only to payees where I have previously notified the bank of this by phone or in person.

I do not want to be able to set up new payees online.

Why are the banks too stupid to allow their customers this option (which would prevent phishing).

Answer, because the banks are too greedy and want to push as many customers as possible away from any (expensive) human contact into (cheap) online banking.

bridiej

I like being able to set up new DD and SO online, I just cant believe people willingly give out passwords and the like....

Madness... :P

Noobie_2

Not an expert, but I don’t think it’s always a case of ‘daft people falling for it’.

Some of the new viruses (technically they may not be viruses, but it’s a convenient, catch-all, word) are very sophisticated and your pc may be infected without you knowing – whereas the ‘traditional’ virus would cause chaos on your pc, and you’d be very aware of it, the new variety leaves your pc working ‘as normal’, because they don’t want to be detected.  Instead, they ‘spy’ on you and can pass all the info from your pc (including bank details, etc) back to the ‘mother ship’.

Not only that, but they can turn your pc in to a ‘zombie’ to launch phishing attacks, etc, on other people.  All unbeknown to you.

And you’re right, it isn’t just NatWest.  These are a few clips from recent articles re phishing and ‘virus’ capabilities:


Banker-AJ virus tracks online banking transactions.
A new virus has been discovered that monitors online banking sessions, collecting passwords and taking screenshots, before sending them off across the Internet where they can subsequently be used to access accounts.

Sophos says it has found examples of Banker-AJ, which targets UK banks, including Abbey, Barclays, Egg, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide and NatWest.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/65637/bankeraj-virus-tracks-online-banking-transactions.html  


Many of the sites trying to con people into handing over personal information are being hosted on hijacked home computers.  

Many of these sites look almost indistinguishable from the website they are posing as and use hi-tech tricks, such as fake toolbars, to hide their real location.

It also suspects that most of these sites are on hijacked home computers that have been infected by a virus or worm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4037975.stm  


If you haven’t already seen this part of the site, you might want to visit the ‘Techie Questions & Discussion’ section.  At the top there’s some very useful info from Fran about Computer Security and Viruses (usually involving free products), and the (related) subjects crop up daily.  The guys on that part of the site are very friendly and helpful (as I'm sure you guys are!)

Hope this has been useful, and hope I haven't alarmed anyone - a few simple precautions can work wonders!  

PS  Something I only just learnt – before you click on a link, just hover over it and check the details that come up (usually in bottom left of screen) – hopefully the site you’re actually being taken to is the one you think you’re going to. More info here:

http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Tech;action=display;num=1101235164