FBI Warns of Spear-Phishing Attacks: Be careful of responding to emails from financial institutions

Cyber Criminals Continue To Use Spear-Phishing To Compromise Computer Networks

On June 25^th 2013, the FBI reported that spear-phishing attacks continue to rise. What is spear-phishing? The phisher deploys a web site, which mimics portions of a legitimate financial institution or other e-commerce websites. The phisher then creates an e-mail message that appears to be from the organization represented on the phishing website. The e-mail message notifies a potential victim of a problem with their account and instructs them to login to the phishing site where the account information will be "verified". Utilizing spam, the phisher sends this e-mail to hundreds and thousands of potential victims. If the victim falls for the scam, they end up compromising their account, their credit card, and potentially could become a victim of other identity theft crimes. For more details on the current spear-phishing, attacks click on the image below.