Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Alert: Online Transaction Error! - ANZ

I've received a couple of emails this morning with the subject Online Transaction Error! and thought I'd warn others and provide a couple of tips.

First this email is a fake email and more than likely, is designed to trick people into revealing their access details to their bank account. So delete the email.

The following are suggestions which may assist you in protecting yourself against phishing attempts.

  • I use a product I wrote called OzEfilter. OzEfilter enables me to view what is on my mail server before I collect the emails. These email would have been deleted at the mail server and never reached my computer, but in this case I accepted the emails so I could review them and share the information with others.
  • I don't provide an email address to my bank, so I will never receive a legitimate email from my bank. All banking emails can thus simply be deleted. I'd recommend you ask your bank to delete your email address. If they need to contact you they can always send a letter.
  • I use Outlook as my main email client. If I were to receive a suspicious email, I can move my mouse over the link and see the underlying web site address. Most free web mail products such as Gmail don't show you this very important information. If you need a copy of Outlook visit the Microsoft store using the link on the front page of JustLocal (http://www.justlocal.com.au/). The following is what I see when I move my mouse over the link in Outlook. Outlook Express is also quite good in that it shows the link in the status area.



Please don't go to the web site shown in the  above image. It is only included here as an example and is in all probability a malicious site.

I hope this information helps you to avoid future malicious emails.

Kelvin Eldridge

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