Nicks VR4

FYI

Sophos.com

Beware the bogus bank email - Sophos warns against financial scam
Sophos technical support has reminded computer users to be wary of bogus emails that pretend to come from online banks. The emails typically ask users to confirm their email address by visiting a website and entering information about their account numbers, passwords and PIN details.

Sophos technical support reports that it has seen an increase in queries from users recently disturbed by the emails they have received, some of which have appeared on first examination extremely official, claiming to come from online banks. Recently bogus emails have claimed to come from a number of banks including Nationwide, NatWest, Barclays, Westpac and Halifax.

Once account numbers, PIN and login password details have been obtained the fraudsters can easily steal money from the innocent user's bank.

"The people behind these emails are common criminals, intent on stealing your cash," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "They have been busy setting up scam websites which mimic the appearance of the real banking sites, and have directed innocent users via email to visit them. Any user who receives a bogus email such as these should inform the bank immediately so that they and the legal authorities can investigate."

Sophos notes that because the fraudsters behind the email do not use what online bank (if any) is being used by the owner of a particular email address they have been spamming thousands of people en masse in the hope of successfully capturing a victim.

Scooby96

Anyone who volutarily gives their PIN number out deserve to be fleeced IMO

Luke

do they have muppet classes at schools these days???

RB5-Black

Man in street with clipboard:
hello Sir can I have your bank account number, sort code and the pin number of you cashcard. This is so we can TAKE YOUR MONEY

Muppet
why yes it's............. oh ,and do you need my telephone banking password too .

Man in street with clipboard:
that would be great

Muppet
Thank's

rik1471

Never under estimate how stupid people are.

Pete Croney

The scam I heard about was a tad more convincing.

The mail was sent to the offices of a high street bank. It asked you to click the link to access the banking system (link provided!!) and log in as they had been updating their database. If everything was ok you would get a "log in successful" message and could then log in again as per usual. If you had an error message, "please list the message in a reply to this email address".

The page displayed was an exact replica of the internal log in screen.

Naturally everyone gets the "log in successful" message and the villans get lots of money.

MILLIONS have been nicked so far.

Scooby96

NEVER EVER REVEAL YOUR PIN NUMBER - EVEN TO THE BANK, THEY EVEN SAY THAT IN THEIR T & C's

rik1471

You don't need a pin number. Just your bank login details, which can be captured on a bogus login page, is all that's needed to be able to transfer your $$$ away.