Saturday, March 21, 2009

Be-Aware.

Lately, I've been receiving random emails from entities that identify themselves as bank groups - mainly from Maybank and CIMB bank - with the subject as Urgent: Critical Problem and a content claiming that their security system has detected some serious threat from my account. Then proceeded with instructions to login via a link in the email to verify and reactivate your account. The following would be screen shot of the said mail:

I'm pretty most of you already know its a fraud, quite obvious ain't it? But I'm posting this up because there's a chance that someone out there, who is less net savvy, unknowingly falling for it - a good example would be the person who steals my blanket every night


How might one know or realize, you might ask? Well, the first thing that should have caught your attention would be the sender's email - in this case, instead of the CIMB domain, its coming from a relatively unidentifiable/unrealted source. Additionally, if I am not mistaken, banks do not usually sent out requests/reminders/verification emails to their customers - its a clause or statement written in their sites.

Secondly, if you mouseover the link included in the email - that's the action of placing the cursor over the link - most probably you would notice that link displayed in the status bar (at the bottom left) of your web browser is different than the one printed on the email. Hence, a fraud. And there's also a high possibility that the site you have been redirected to via the fraud link contains a similar look and feel of the actual website.

Next, you should also be aware of which email account that has been used when registering for your bank account. Its a good practise to always keep an email account for private/formal engagements, that is not exposed/frequently used for other registrations (e.g. for social network, events, blogging and such). These fraud emails would most probably end up in your junk accounts.


Last but not least, and only applicable to this particular case - I am sure its a fraud because I do not own an account in CIMB lols!


Anyway, these fraud cases are not limited to only emails. I have once received an SMS from a random number stating that there's some issue with my AmBank account and requested me to call a particular number to clarify the matter. I do not own an account in AmBank but I was fearing that someone used my particulars to do so (identity theft) hence I called a friend working there to clarify on this issue.

Which turned out to be a fraud case as my friend mentioned that its the policy of the bank to contact the customer themselves if there really is an issue instead of engaging through SMS. Just thought it might be helpful for you guys and girls out there to know.

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