Scam

Be on the lookout for an interesting new type of Phishing scam that involves the use of telephone numbers as opposed to email hyperlinks that take you to a bogus website.

Two big incidents involving spam emails urging people to call a phone number to verify account information have been discovered within the past two weeks, indicating that voice phishing may soon become a popular new tool for internet criminals.

The first of these voice phishing scams was reported on June 23, 2006 by Santa Barbara Trust, when people started receiving forged emails with the subject line "Message 156984 Client's Details Confirmation (Santa Barbara Bank & Trust)." Unlike the traditional phishing email that includes a hyperlink leading to a fake website, this one urged customers to call a certain phone number to verify account details. When victims dial the phone number, a recording requests that they enter their account number. Since the phone number belongs does not belong to the bank, users who key in account details are handing this confidential information to the thief.

On July 7, 2006 a similar scam involving fake e-mail from PayPal. Identity thieves sent out spam email messages warning people that their PayPal account has been compromised. Instead of the usual click here and log on to your account phishing link in the email, these messages urge the recipient to call a phone number to verify their account details. Just like the earlier case involving Santa Barbara Trust, callers are greeted with a recording that says something like welcome to account verification, please enter your 16 digit account number.

Both phone numbers appearing in these scam emails were a Southern California (805) area code, but there could very well be others.

When something like this starts a lot of copycats usually follow, so watch out for this type of scam in your inbox.

Protecting yourself from traditional e-mail phishing scams as well as the new voice phishing scam is mainly a matter of learning what to do. Most people know not to click on links in emails that appear to be from financial institutions or other companies they may have an account with. Now we need to learn not to call any phone numbers included in an email.

As always, the best thing to do if you are concerned is to open up a web browser and manually enter the companys address to log on and verify your account is ok. If youd rather call, get the phone number from the companys official website or from a phone directory.

E-mail phishing scams are really just spam messages with a criminal purpose, so a good way to keep these dangerous emails out of your inbox is to install anti-spam software.

Spam blocking programs keep spam out of your inbox by using a combination of blacklists (list of known spamming websites) as well as special algorithms and filters designed to detect junk by analyzing the content. Spam blockers are pretty effective at stopping junk, which really helps keep crime-mail out of your inbox.

Debbie is an information technology professional and author of the following sites covering information technology topics:
Computer Security for Everyone
Antivirus, Firewall and Spyware Resources
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