Phishing scam targets investors, spoofs finance agency
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA), an independent regulator of brokerages, is warning investors that they may be targeted by a phishing scam through emails claiming to come from the agency.
Fake FINRA emails promise investors that they are owed compensation from auction rate securities (ARS) settlements and seek personal information. The fake emails are made to appear as if they originated from FINRA and use language from a recent FINRA press release announcing ARS settlements.
"FINRA is very concerned that these fraudulent emails will ensnare investors in an identity theft or some other type of scam," said John Gannon, FINRA's senior VP for investor education.
This phishing attack is similar to other phishing scams that spoof the IRS or individual banks, security experts warn. Individuals are warned that legitimate emails from IRS and banks do not ask for account details.
Emails from scammers pose other threats to individuals and businesses in the form of malware. Web security firm Sophos recently spotted phishing emails pretending to be from IRS that contained malware for infecting user's PCs.
Related News:
FBI: Law firms and PR agencies high on hacker target lists - 11.18.2009
Using complex email scams, cyber criminals are increasingly targeting sensitive information held by law firms and public relations companies, according to an FBI advisory released earlier this month.
Phishing email takes numerous forms - 11.17.2009
The practice of impersonating authoritative websites and sources in order to convince victims to divulge personal information - known as phishing - has come a long way from the Nigerian "419" scams that popularized the technique in the public mind. Modern phishing is becoming increasingly dangerous in part because attacks can come from a variety of sources.
Email filtering technology working overtime, but spam won't go quietly - 11.16.2009
While modern email filtering systems can block 95 to 99 percent of spam messages, according to Tech Target, mountains of unsolicited email are still delivered every day, accounting for the vast majority of all emails sent.
Phishing scammers leak Windows Live Hotmail passwords to web - 10.6.2009
Hackers posted thousands of passwords from Windows Live Hotmail email accounts to a website over the weekend, in what Microsoft said was the result of a phishing campaign targeting the free webmail service.
PayChoice security breach leads to email scam - 10.2.2009
When users of payroll processor PayChoice received emails last week asking them to download a browser plug-in in order to continue accessing the site, many were lured into downloading malware that exploited security flaws in Internet Explorer and some Adobe software.
|
