Don't be a victim of online fraud

Remember we are encouraging safe investing, so we repeat:

Have you recently responded to a request to update your logon details via a link supplied in an email? If so, contact your bank or other financial service provider.

Don't fall victim to fraud - always be alert. Look out for any suspicious emails, websites, account activity or phone calls that involve your financial information. If so, contact your bank or other financial service provider.

Take care! This e-mail was distributed to banking clients
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From: Absa Bank Limited [mailto:upgrade@absa.co.za]
Sent: 10 November 2008 11:39To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: New Online Secure Server
Importance: High

Dear Absa Customer,

We are proud to inform you that we have put a stop to the increasing spam attacks and security riskon our online banking servers by introducing the New Online Secured Database GX-5.

We are automatically registering all our customers to the secured server for added security and for aconvenience online banking experience. This registration is mandatory to all customers andunregistered accounts will be deleted from our server.

Proceed with your registration below.


Sincerely,

Absa Bank Limited
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What to look out for when identifying an e-mail or phishing scam:

• Deceptive Subject Lines: These look as if they are genuinely related to the company supposedly sending the e-mail.
• Forged Sender’s Address: An easy deception method to make the e-mail appear as though it has come from the company it is claiming to be.
• Genuine Looking Content: They copy images and text styles of the real sites in order to fool the reader. Trusts and authentication marks are duplicated and they may even have genuine links to the company’s privacy policy and other pages on the legitimate website to create an illusion of authenticity.
• Disguised hyperlinks: E-mails may display a genuine website address, but when you click on it, the hyperlink will take you to a different website. Look out for a long website address as it will take you to the site after the ‘@’ symbol. Example: http://www.genuine-site.com-name@fraud-site.com. If you clicked on this hyperlink it would take you to http://fraud-site.com as it is after the @ symbol.
• E-mail Form: These forms containing your personal information are submitted to remote computers, which the fraudsters access and then use your information to commit fraud on your bank accounts.

3 things you should do if you believe that your banking details have been compromised

• Change your sign-on details immediately (PIN and Password). This can usually be done securely online within your banks Internet Banking service or at your branch.
• As an added precaution, contact contact your bank or other financial service provider and let them know that you suspect that your personal banking details may have been fraudulently obtained.
• Monitor your accounts for unusual activity and report any suspicious activity immediately to your bank or other financial service provider.

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Need more information. See our posts of December 20 and 27 and January 01