Phishing

The email was so realistic, with the cute little logo and all.  It invited me to click on a link to update my information “as part of our continuous effort in protecting your account.  I have seen dozens of these over the past several years.  I can only hope that no customer of National Bank of Anguilla is taken in by the scam.  It helped that the usual mis-typings and mis-spellings expected of these scams were present.  I immediately forwarded a copy of the email to Val, Roy and Ian at NBA suggesting they get an urgent notice to the police and the public using all media.

Dear Valued Customer, It has come to our attention that your NBA Online profile needs to be updated as part of our continuous effort in protecting your account  and reducing instances of fraud on our website. This is being done to secure your accounts and to protect your personal informations from being compromised.We at National Bank of Anguilla Online are committed in making sure that your online transactions are secure. Click on the link below to start the verification process and re-confirm your account https://www.nba-online/_mem_bin/formslogin.asp Once your information has been updated and confirmed your online service would continue as usual and would not be interrupted Sincerely, National Bank of Anguilla Customer Service

Wikipedia explains that in the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.  Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public.  Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake.  Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.  Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term "phishing" was made in 1996. The term is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking or password harvesting fishing, and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial information and passwords.

The main thing we have all been taught is DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK.  If you check out the ACTUAL address for the link you will find it takes you to a site that looks exactly like NBA but it is actually http://thomaspaulpillow.com/main.html.  Once you sign onto your account, they have your logon info.  If you already signed on, better check with the bank or put a hold on your account.

Hopefully, no one in Anguilla who received this, and I am sure I am not the only one, was tricked.