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Probably the best phishing scam I’ve seen

Phishing scamThis is the third of three emails all with similar layouts but with different messages.

Interestingly, they know I have a bank account in SA (I live in the UK) so has someone purchased Standard Bank’s email database? I hope not, but if they had surely Standard Bank would know this – and then send out a secure message to it’s customers?

Here is an extract from the email

We have implemented security measures consistent with our internal information security practices to help us keep your information secure. These measures include technical and procedural steps to protect your data from misuse, access or disclosure, loss, alteration or destruction.One of these security measures is AutoBank enhancements to help us to keep your personal and banking data up to date

Please complete the update using the links below.

I searched the web for examples of this scam – to see if anyone else had posted about it – but there’s nothing out there. I can’t be the first – if you’ve seen this email too, post to this blog and let others know.

Here is the security alert page on the Standard Bank website  I see no mention of the email scam but there is a good page on email phishing.

Chrome Phishing filterKeep your eyes open for scams like this – always check to see where links in the email take you. In most cases banks will not email you anyway -  so always be careful.I tried one of the links to see what would happen and Google Chrome prevented me from visiting the page – thanks Google!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Probably the best phishing scam I’ve seen”

  1. Matt Bowden Says:
    January 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am

    I should clarify what I mean by best. In terms of email design, use of language and consistency across several emails it’s very very good.

  2. Dieter Lehmann Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 7:23 am

    Hey Matt,

    Heard a similar thing on the radio(5fm) about Standard Bank about 3 weeks ago and seem’s like its in full swing now. I found a couple links through google on this which are very recent. Some as recent as yesterday.

    I got scammed through ebay / paypal recently where somehow someone got my paypal password and hacked my account transferring $1000 for their time, so i’m pretty vigiliant with this now and my passwords.

    http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/phishing/individual_alert.php?fa_no=230394&mode=alert

    http://www.integralwebsolutions.co.za/Blog/EntryId/22/Standard-Bank-Phishing-e-mail.aspx

    Keep well,

    Dieter

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