The Weekly Top 3 are the three most relevant news stories for the week that are related to phishing scams and activities reported in the media, security blogs and security magazines on the Internet. This week, we look at phishing activities related to Bournemouth Water, Electrum and a gang of fake prosecution officials.
Earlier this week, the Bournemouth Water company warned customers not to fall for a phishing e-mail purporting to be from the company. The phishing e-mail used a false e-mail address to make it look like it came from the water company. It urged its victim to open an attachment, which was a Microsoft Word document titled 'Water Services Invoice'. When the victim opened the attachment their computer was infected with malware because the document contained malicious VBA macro code. The company stated that anyone who received this e-mail should immediately delete it. Click the link below to read more.
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13885719.Bournemouth_Water__don_t_fall_for_scam_email/?ref=arc
Electrum is a popular bitcoin wallet for desktop and mobile devices that communicates with a trusted server connected to the bitcoin P2P network. It was reported this week that scammers had created a fake Electrum Twitter account for the purpose of starting a phishing attack against the users of the service. The Twitter account was an exact clone of the original Electrum account with the only difference being the spelling of the word, "Electrum". If a user followed this fake account, they would have received a private message asking to reply quickly because there was a concern with their Electrum wallet. Users who replied to this message could have had their bitcoins stolen through a phishing attack. Click the link below to read more.
Earlier this week, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency stated that they arrested several people in Vietnam for allegedly defrauding 200 people of hundreds of millions of won. The gang set up a call center in Ho Chi Minh City, where they devised a phishing scam that allowed them to steal 490 million won. The phishing scam entailed the gang pretending to be police or prosecution officials. They would call unspecified persons in Korea and trick them into wiring money into bank accounts under the pretext of deposit protection. They also pretended to be bank workers and claimed that the money they were attempting to obtain was part of a tax scheme for low-interest loans. Click the link below to read more.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/10/116_188893.html
APHC