Phishing Scam at ANZ: Phishing in Style!
Photo by: Darkpatator
ANZ Bank warned its customers of a phishing scam that can overwhelm them with its sophistication. Like other scams of the genre, its objective was to obtain their confidential data by presenting itself as an official communication from the bank. Saying that their accounts have been “suspended”, it directs bank customers to submit details like their name, registration number, password, and phone number to reactivate it. However, it does this in style.
Very unlike its poor cousins, who in fractured English offer a painful read, this email advises the reason for suspending the account in impressive sounding officialese:
“Although we cannot disclose our investigative procedures that led to this conclusion, please know that we took this action in order to maintain the safety of your account!”
The site where customers are asked to give away their secret info, also, is strikingly similar to the official ANZ web site.
Yet, in a slip that perhaps indicates the scam’s origin, it asks its Australian target audience for their address and “zip code”, a term Americans normally use in lieu of the Aussie ‘postcode’.
Revealing the scam, an ANZ spokeswoman reminded its customers to log on to the company website only “by typing http://www.anz.com into the address bar, rather than following links to the ANZ website.”
A spokeswoman for the NSW Office of Fair Trading, further advised bank customers to get in touch with their banks whenever they receive such emails. More importantly, she pointed out, such contact should only be made “through their official websites or on phone numbers obtained from the White Pages or a bank statement.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
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