Standard Bank has shut down a phony internet site set up by fraudsters to obtain customers’ banking details.
The bank established early on Thursday that a fraudulent e-mail was being circulated, attempting to obtain customers’ internet passwords, card numbers and personal identification number 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 of the threat,” said Herman Singh, director of technology engineering at Standard Bank.
The fraudulent e-mail, which targets banking customers, is identical to the one detected by FNB earlier this week.
The fraudulent e-mail directs customers to the phony internet site where customers are requested to “update” or “validate” their banking details.
Standard Bank said it will never request customers, through e-mail, to provide it with confidential banking details.
It added that it has proactive security measures in place that constantly monitor internet activities of this nature. To date, the bank has detected and shut down more than 50 fraudulent internet sites.
“We take internet security seriously and are constantly looking at new and innovative ways to improve our security measures.
“We strongly encourage our customers to make use of two of the bank’s enhanced security services.
“These are: register for “myupdates”, which is an e-mail and SMS early-notification system; and to use the free anti-virus and firewall offering,” said Singh. — I-Net Bridge