June 10, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Cyberspace criminals are tailoring customized phishing scams that are timed to the transitions between the systems of merging banks, a report by research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com) says.
Criminals are hoping that customer awareness of mergers will make them more susceptible to phising emails, which lead recipients to fraudulent Web sites appearing to be that of legitimate financial institutions. The sites then attempt to trick them into divulging sensitive personal or financial information such as passwords.
Netcraft says Wachovia recently issued a warning about phishing scams as it completes its merger with SouthTrust. The bank says it will not issue any communications through email during the merger, opting for postal mail and internal messages through its online banking system.
According to Netcraft, the wide adoption of online banking and the consolidation of IT systems and customer accounts that inevitably result from mergers will be a fertile breeding ground for phishing scams. There were approximately 1,500 bank mergers every year in the US between 1996 and 2002, according to the Federal Reserve. |
