Cyber Scams: Personally Addressed Emails: Executives Targeted

Hundreds of senior executives across the globe received personally addressed emails in last April, saying they were being subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury by the U.S. District Court in San Diego, according to a federal courts spokesman in Washington, D.C. When users clicked on a link containing the attachment, their computers were infected with malicious software. The case was referred to the FBI, the spokesman said.

Panos Anastassiadis, chief executive of Cyveillance, an Internet security firm in Arlington, Va., that also examined the case, suspects fraudsters were trying to get "first-quarter financial results of publicly traded companies a week before everybody else."

Mr. Antastassiadis himself received an email but didn't open it because he says he knew better. He estimates that almost half of the recipients opened the documents, exposing themselves to the malware. Many also forwarded the bogus messages to their legal departments -- infecting them, too. Mr. Anastassiadis said an organized-crime ring based in Eastern Europe is believed responsible.

The use of cellphone text messages is a fairly new tactic. Earlier this month, customers of Associated Bank, a unit of Associated Banc-Corp, were among the recipients of email and cellphone text alerts warning them that their credit cards had been deactivated. The message directed them to call a telephone number and leave their account information. Customers of Norway Savings Bank in Maine were also among those hit by cellphone text messages about their debit cards shortly before Christmas.

In another case, emails bearing the logo of Franklin Bank of Jacksonville, Texas, which failed on Nov. 7, were circulating throughout Texas in November and December that also sought account numbers, personal-identification numbers and passwords from recipients. Prosperity Bank, which assumed all the deposits of the failed bank, said customers didn't lose any money.

In another new twist, scammers using Internet-based phone service are faking the caller-IDs of banks and other businesses in telephone phishing scams. Because the phone ID bears the name of a real company, victims have been tricked into supplying personal information. Some customers of the Bank of Lancaster County in central Pennsylvania, which became part of the PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in August, were targeted in this type of scam last summer, a PNC spokesman confirmed. Because of federal regulations and bank policy, any customers' money lost would have been reimbursed, he said.

Difficult times are also causing more people to fall prey to job- and business-opportunity scams that have migrated to the Internet from postal mail.

Read the entire article:
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-bud...ck-in-Downturn

by M.P. McQueen
—Sarah E. Needleman contributed to this article.
Thursday, January 29, 2009

I also got the same thing--twice??