By Ben Needles
Email fraud and scams are very common and becoming more sophisticated. The latest practice is designed specifically to get you to believe you are dealing with a legitimate company you already are familiar with and trust.
The criminals perpetrating the scam do it solely to gain access to your existing personal and financial information. With that information they can open new accounts and/or gain access to your already existing financial accounts.
Several schemes lately typify the sophistication of criminals and the need for consumers to be very vigilant and pro-active in protecting their personal information. The scam involves an email sent to you that appears to be from a major institution.
These emails appear very official, complete with company logo, embedded pictures and professional layout. Several such fraudulent emails made public recently are purportedly from the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, MSNBC, and Bank of America.
The Taxpayer Advocate Service email claims the recipient is eligible for a tax refund. The Taxpayer Advocate Service is a real branch of the IRS and the email looks very official. The email instructs the victim to fill in all sorts of personal information on the form provided and submit the form electronically to receive the refund.
The reality of course is that The Taxpayer Advocate Service does not issue tax refunds. That is determined by filing your annual tax return.
The MSNBC email also looks very authentic and announces some form of breaking news. In this case the criminals hope you open the email to read more about the breaking news.
The email looks like it is linked to a specific page on the MSNBC website but in reality is linked to another page that prompts you to install a new version of Adobe reader or some other common software tool. If you click on the download prompt a Trojan Horse will be installed on your computer which gives the criminals access to your pc.
The bank email, in this case Bank of America, again looks very convincing. Complete with company logo this email hopes to create a sense of urgency and plays to your emotions. The email claims that the bank is attempting to prevent fraud and needs you to confirm your account information in order for them to ensure your financial security.
Filling in your account or other personal information required by the email and hitting submit transmits your personal information to the criminals.
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To learn more about these and other common scams go to clickfirst.com you'll be glad you did.
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Friday, March 27, 2009
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