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To avoid phishing scams

• Be suspicious of any unsolicited e-mail requesting personal information.
• Avoid filling out forms in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
• Always compare the link in the e-mail to the link that you are actually directed to.
• Log on to the official website, instead of “linking” to if from an unsolicited e-mail.
• Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify if the e-mail is genuine.
Source: The federal government’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Help available

If you believe you have been the victim of identity theft, possibly because you provided personal information in response to a suspicious, unsolicited e-mail:
• Immediately contact your financial institution and, if necessary, close existing accounts and open new ones.
• Contact the police and request a copy of any police report or case number for later reference.
• Call the three major credit rating bureaus, Equifax at 1-800-525-6285, Experian at 1-888-397-3742 and TransUnion at 1-800-680-7289, to request that a fraud alert be placed on your credit report.
Source: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Discussion

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July 2, 2010

Phishing scam hits some Valley residents

E-mails looking for bank info

Arthur Foulkes The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Wabash Valley residents were the target of an Internet “phishing” scam Friday.

A large number of area residents received a fraudulent e-mail designed to appear as if sent by First Financial Bank of Terre Haute. The e-mail even included a copy of the bank’s logo and slogan, “Always Close to Home.”

However, the e-mail was not sent by the bank. It was a “phishing” scam designed to obtain banking information from victims.

As of Friday morning, First Financial officials were tracing the source of the e-mails and working to have them stopped. Several people who received the e-mail contacted the bank; however, not all of those who received the e-mail were bank customers, bank officials said.

“They are casting this broad net hoping that someone will bite on it,” said Steven Herndon, vice president of compliance and security at First Financial Bank. “It’s not specifically targeting First customers. It was broadcast very broadly and it may land in a [First] customer’s e-mail, but it’s not specifically targeting our customers,” he said.

The e-mail, which arrived Friday morning in area e-mail boxes, tells recipients that access to their online banking “has been blocked because of several suspicious login attempts.” It then instructs recipients to click on a link within the e-mail message to “unblock and secure your online banking access.”

It is important for recipients of the e-mail not to click on that link, First Financial officials said.

“What we’ve ascertained so far is that it just directs you out to a phishing link that asks for login and password information,” Herndon said. “We’re going through the process of getting the e-mail messages shut down and alerting who we need to alert about it,” Herndon said Friday morning.

First Financial will never ask customers for personal banking information in that fashion, Herndon said.

As of late Friday morning, bank officials had received several calls from customers and non-customers about the e-mail. However, no one reported having actually clicked on the link, Herndon said.

“People are becoming more aware about this type of stuff,” Herndon said. “Most of them pretty much recognize it as a phishing [scam] because they know banks aren’t going to send out an e-mail” and ask for your online banking login and password, he said.

First Financial Bank reported the incident to the federal government’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), Herndon said. IC3 is a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

According to IC3’s 2009 annual report, the IC3 website received more than 336,000 complaints last year of potential Internet crimes. That was the largest number of complaints since IC3 started in 2000.

Also in 2009, IC3 reported losses of $559.7 million from Internet crimes, more than twice the $264.6 million reported in 2008.

To report an Internet crime, visit the IC3 website at www.ic3.gov.



Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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