Recently I have seen many phishing spams sent to various friends, faking to be Credit Unions to collect personal information. In time they will only appear more legitimate, just as counterfeit cash is. Here we point out the suspicious signs, and general common sense that you should have to protect yourself.
You can also read some general advice from HVFCU. More recently, BusinessWeek has an article on the Mind Games that Cybercrooks play.
Look at this first counterfeit email:
Please respond to "Credit Union"
To: (someone's non-primary email address)
cc:
Subject: System maintenance: update your Federal Credit Union
Credit Union is constantly working to ensure security by regularly
screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account,
and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service.
Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account
features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon
as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Why is my account access limited?
Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):
* We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an
unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your
account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive
Credit Union account features. We understand that this may be an
inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is
for your protection.
(Your case ID for this reason is CU1-818-214-242146.)
At Credit Union, one of our most important responsibilities to you, our
customer, is the safekeeping of the nonpublic personal ("confidential")
information you have entrusted to us and using this information in a
responsible manner. Appropriate use of the confidential information you
provide us is also at the heart of our ability to provide you with
exceptional personal service whenever you contact us.
How can I restore my account access?
Please confirm your identity here: Restore My Online Banking and complete
the "Steps to Remove Limitations."
Completing all of the checklist items will automatically restore your
account access.
Now look at the second counterfeit email:
From: National Credit Union Association
Reply-To: National Credit Union Association
To: indiathisweekads@gmail.com
Date: Dec 7, 2005 8:27 AM
Subject: National Credit Unions Association ALERT
Dear valued Credit Union member,
In the past months several credit card skimming devices have been captured in gas stations and atm locations. Fraud cost the National Credit Union Association $6B in 2005. Issuers face mounting losses due to skimming and card cloning. Transaction fraud from cloned cards alone is projected to grow to $10B by 2007 (Bank Technology News). Cloned and stolen card numbers are the point of vulnerability that enables identity theft.
The security of the ATM PIN is very important. Therefore, the National Credit Union Association is performing a security check in order to avoid future data leak. In order to update your account details please access the link below and complete the required steps:
National Credit Union Association Security Update
Once all the requirements are met, your account will be secured and safe from any possible future illegal use.
Thank you for your cooperation regarding this important matter.
What are various initial signs that these are fake email?
- The email is not addressed directly and only to you, but also to other random names.
- Banks don't rely on email for important information, but by regular mail and in writing, as legal documents.
- The spammers are clever to use generic "Credit Union" to make you think that it is your own credit union, but credit unions always address themselves by their entire full legal name, and never just the generic "Credit Union".
- The return email address of ncua.gov is screaming for suspicion: Banks and credit unions are commercial entities, and should end in .com, NEVER in .gov. The spammers are clever to want you to think that they are official.
- There is no phone numbers to contact a real person: a legitimate institution would always send along a phone number to contact a real person, in case electronic systems fail. The lack of phone number or address means danger.
Digging deeper:
When the phishing spammers get clever, and bypass the previous tests, here are more details that you can check into:
On Gmail, you can click "Show Original":
This shows the headers of the email:
Received: from 24.110.244.124 by ; Wed, 07 Dec 2005 07:24:28 -0600
Message-ID:
From: "National Credit Union Association"
Reply-To: "National Credit Union Association"
The fact that the message-ID shows the originator to be from hotmail, rather than NCUA.gov, tells you that something is deceptive.
Look into the origin of the domain:
NCUA.gov is National Credit Union Administration, not Association.
Such blatant mistake is crying out foul.
Summary:
In the future, far more sophisticated counterfeit techniques will be out there. If they even have a 5% success rate (5 out of 100 people getting fooled), they will steal a lot of money from society. You need to arm yourself with common sense and a bit of clever suspicion.
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