Phishers targeting Northwestern Bank
Photo by: Pablokorona
The Traverse City Police Department notified all of a phishing scam targeted on Northwestern Bank customers. The bank contacted the police department last Friday after it received information from its customers that they had received emails from the bank asking for their confidential account information.
Phishers, posing as bank officials, were sending emails asking customers to visit the bank’s website by clicking on a link inside. The click sent unwitting account holders to a website strikingly similar to the original bank’s website. Here they were queried for such confidential information as their account number and PIN number.
The phishers game was caught by most customers; a number of the email’s recipients called up the bank to find out if the email was real. The bank immediately informed the local police hoping to prevent its customers from becoming victims to the scam.
The Police Department did not waste any time. Giving details, Captain Brian Heffner from the department, said:
“Our detectives were successful Friday evening in getting with the web company that hosted the fictitious website and they have since shut that website down. What we’re trying to determine is if anybody in fact did use the website and is seeing any withdrawals from their account.”
The phishers, he warned customers, may have mass mailed this letter to all the email addresses they could get hold of, expecting it to land in the inboxes of a few account holders. The phishers are hoping to use the account information given away by gullible account holders for stealing money from their accounts.
He asked customers of the bank to take care. Even clicking on the link inside the email could be dangerous as the fraudsters may have programmed a click to download malicious programs and viruses onto the customer’s computer.
In case they receive the email, customers are asked to go down or talk to the bank directly before doing anything else.
Source: TV7-4.com
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