Phishers now using the phone
Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:10 pm
Tricky gits!
full storyIn a new twist on phishing, fraudsters are sending out e-mail that attempt to trick people into sharing personal information over the phone.
Cloudmark, a San Francisco-based e-mail security company, said it has seen two separate attacks this week. In both cases, the spammed message warns of a problem with a bank account and instructs the recipient to dial a phone number to resolve it, the company said in a statement published Wednesday.
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The caller is connected to a voice response system that is made to sound exactly like the bank's own system, Cloudmark said.
"The phone system identifies itself to the target as the financial institution and prompts them to enter account number and PIN," Cloudmark said.
"The result can be personally financially devastating," Adam O'Donnell, the senior research scientist at Cloudmark, said in the statement.
