Phishing Citibank 

Phishing Citibank is the big attempt by phishers to create havoc. Citibank is latest favorite target for phishers trying to steal customer identities. E-mails requesting personal information to gain access to bank accounts are sweeping the world, causing Citibank and other institutions to warn their customers about the scam.

Citibank has received several calls from customers and non-customers complaining about receiving the e-mail, Citibank is working aggressively with the Secret agencies to crack down the e-mails, According to the card division of ATM and Debit Credit Reports, phishing was up 400 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003.

Be cautious!

Citybank announced about its non-participation in spam e-mail requesting to specify data on plastic cards. Client having clicked a link in this letter, found himself at the dummy site of the bank where he was told to put the number of credit card and PIN code. This kind of fraud is known as phishing.

The last four digits of a person's credit-card number, Social Security number, and bank-account number is the most wanted data, with help of these anybody can tamper a victim's accounts.

Anyone can guess pop-up ads as a Spam. But in this case e-mail comes directly to your mailbox and looks very authentic. There are several versions of the e-mail, containing the bank's logo. Mentioning that, We may have to close your account if you don't update your details by clicking this link. But Citibank's senior official explained that we would never send e-mails asking for personal information to clients. 

Anti-Phishing Working Group

According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG),which monitors such attacks, the number of new phishing attacks reported has risen by an average of 50 percent per month in the first six months of this year.

Phishing attacks use spoofed e-mails and fraudulent web sites, which replicates the authentic business sites. The dummy sites are constructed to fool respondents into entering personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account user names, and passwords, which can then be used for financial theft or identity theft.

Phishing attacks on rise 

Phishings attacks are risen by 19 percent in June, from 1197 attacks to 1422, more than 12 times as high as the 116 attacks reported in December 2003, APWG reported on its Web site. Due to rise in phishing attcks, phishing stats are on rise.

Most phishing attacks are aimed at customers of Citibanks in the United States, England, and Australia, although online e-commerce companies such as eBay and PayPal are also the favorite target of phishers. After phsihing Citibank customers, phishers are going for other banks and favorite websites. Citibank is the hot favorite of phishing criminals, with 470 separate attacks made in June, compared to the 285 attacks aimed at eBay. In U.k Lloyds TSB Bank PLC is the main target with 24 attacks in June, and Westpac Banking of Australia was attacked 11 times.

Read the following articles on Phishing.

Securybanks phishing trojans guide
Securybanks phishing trojans can create havoc. Here are the security measures which you can take to stop them.

Examples of phishing for you
Examples of phishing e-mails will give you exact idea about dummy emails.

Phishing stats are on rise
As phishers and hackers are active, phishing stats are on rise.

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