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Did Someone Say That Internet Scams Were Becoming More Sophisticated

Posted in: Browsers,General,Security,Technology by Richard Hearne on November 1, 2006
Internet Marketing Ireland

I got this in an E-mail box yesterday:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Recent email scams have attempted to consume customers into disclosing their Online Banking security log-in details by re-directing them to a fake site.

Well apart from the reference to scams ‘consuming’ customers that opening sentence states a fact that the banks have been trying to get across to all their customers.

We publish details about such scams on our security pages. However, we would like to get security warnings across to customers as many as possible.

That’s why we’re asking you to take a few minutes to check and update your account details. This will allow us to update your occasional security and Online Banking service information.

Hmm.. so a bit of reverse psychology to draw us in. So you’re telling me about the risks of phishing schemes. Then you mention how important it is to get the message out about these scams. Seems fare enough. You couldn’t possibly be trying to pull the wool over my eyes. God knows, I might even have missed the obvious grammatical mistakes had I been reading this in a hurry.

But it’s your call to action that I love. After warning about the dangers of ‘recent email scams’ you want me to follow your link so I can ‘check and update’ my account details:

Due to the recent security update, you are requested to follow the link below.

And of course you have reinforce that call by preying on that most vulnerable human emotion – fear:

*Important*
You are required to provide all necessary information completely and correctly otherwise, due to security reasons, we may have to close your account temporarily.

Security Advisor
Permanent Tsb

The scary thing here is that should these guys get a native English speaker to create their copy I have no doubt these mails could get some conversions.

Of course if you have Firefox 2 installed you get this nice little message when you click on the link:
Firefox anti-phishing protection

The site in question has been removed.

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4 Comments »

  1. Richard

    From the folks at OpenDNS:

    “PhishTank is a community anti-phishing Web site where anyone can go to submit suspected phishes, track the status of their submissions and help verify others’ submissions. Unlike other anti-phishing efforts that may come to mind, PhishTank is totally free to use and open to access. See http://www.phishtank.com

    Chris

    Comment by Chris Byrne — November 6, 2006 @ 11:25 am

  2. Interesting topic Richard. But do watch your own copy errors: “preying” comes with an “e”.

    Comment by M — November 7, 2006 @ 5:03 pm

  3. Well spotted M

    But perhaps I’m the religious type :grin:

    Comment by Richard Hearne — November 7, 2006 @ 5:14 pm

  4. I think email scams will become more sophisticated as time goes on. I recently did a study for my honours degree on internet fraud and many of the experts I interviewed stated that.

    Comment by Jane — December 29, 2009 @ 11:35 pm

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