Absa joined other major banks on Thursday in warning its clients against an internet ”phishing” scam.
The phishing (fishing for information) scam entails an e-mail, with an internet link to a lookalike bank website, being sent to clients, prompting them to reveal personal information, a spokesperson for Absa said.
FNB, Standard Bank and Nedbank revealed that their customers are also being targeted with the scam.
”Phishing is a known scam that has now reared its head once again,” said Christo Vrey, Absa’s general manager: digital channels.
Fraudulent e-mails can be recognised because they include attachments, requesting personal identification codes and passwords. The websites often contained grammatical errors.
”The initial investigation shows that the website is hosted outside of South Africa. The bank is doing everything in its power to shut the website down as soon as possible,” said Roland le Sueur, head of FNB internet banking.
”Our advice to our customers is to ignore all types of e-mails directing them to a website requesting personal details such as account numbers,” Vrey said.
Standard Bank said it has shut down a phony internet site that was set up by fraudsters to obtain its customers’ banking details.
”Our early security-detection systems alerted us to the attack and we immediately took action to close down the phony site and to alert our customers to the threat,” said Herman Singh, director of technology engineering at Standard Bank.
The banks urged customers to contact their branches to verify the source of e-mails and delete the e-mails immediately.
Absa said it is aware of a similar scam that was recently used against large European and American banks. — Sapa