Barclays Bank Credit Card Customers Targeted By Massive Phishing Attack
Barclays Bank credit customers have been targeted by one of the UK’s biggest phishing attacks to-date.
'Phishing', where a bogus e-mail is sent by a potential fraudster asking an innocent and unaware customer to verify their account details, is a growing problem globally - accounting for more than half of the global sum lost to credit card fraudsters in the last year. Problems are made worse as many phishing frauds are now originating our of South-East Asia using technology that allows the e-mail sender to send e-mail which can by-pass spam filters. With these e-mails having a look and feel very similar to a real e-mail from the bank, and with the displayed url looking real, unwary and elderly customers can easily be fooled into giving away very sensitive financial information.
In this instance, Barclays Bank have been alerted by the antivirus company Panda Software that 61 different variant spoof e-mail have been sent targeting a range of Barclays’ customers, including those who have credit card accounts with Barclays. This concerted attack on Barclays’ customers is so large it has caused an estimated increased in overall phishing e-mail by as much as 30%.
Credit card customers of Barclays are being warned not to click on any link sent in an e-mail asking them to provide or verify their credit card information and that at no time will the bank send an e-mail to its customers asking them for their Personal Identification Number (PIN).
If you are a credit card customer of Barclays and you receive an e-mail with the tag-line “verify your account information”, “verify your bank data” or anything similar to these which purported to have been sent by Barclays you should inform the bank that you have been the victim of an attempted phishing attack and delete the e-mail immediately.
With the recent re-launch of Barclays Bank’s popular student credit card, this coordinated attack on Barclays Bank’s credit card customers could not really have come at a worse time for the bank, so stay alert and remember that you should never provide your UK bank and financial details in an e-mail.
With increased efforts by fraudsters to obtain the credit card details of UK credit card customers for fraudulently use on the Internet on the increase since the introduction of Chip and PIN security measures on UK credit card in 2005, if you have any doubt about the authentic nature of an e-mail alleged to have been sent by a UK financial institution, make sure you pick up the phone and call your known contact at the bank to verify that the e-mail is indeed genuine.
Richard Smith
18th September 2006
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