Bank of the west notice (sigh)
Well, how long ago was I talking about phishing attacks? Just a few posts back it seems and in my inbox this evening was the above subject line. It’s almost funny, since I don’t actually HAVE an account with Bank of the West, but since I was feeling a bit curious I thought I’d pick it apart, see where it came from and where the site was hosted.
It turns out that if you can view the source of a message you can see the destination of the links contained in that message, so where it had a hyperlink to Bank of the West, in the source was a reference like this http://www.bankofthewest…blahblah So, I took a look at the following address http://sitehostingscam.com/admin/…/BOW/ kind of bypassing their entry page and got a directory listing. I worked my way up and found an IT company in Australia.
My guess is that it’s a php exploit that they’ve fallen victim to, but I don’t know (the admin page appears to be a login for some sort of CMS system.) I sent an email to their webmaster and abuse addresses hoping that someone will see it. I gave the link that the email contained and sent along the phishy message, telling them that their server was being used to host the scam. After exploring a bit more, I came across a directory where their pages had been logging each IP address that requested the page and inside a file for the IP was either account numbers in some cases or abusive comments for the phishers in other cases. (Looks like there are quite a few folks that see it for what it is.)
I sent a second message along to the abuse/webmaster addresses because it appears that there were a few folks that did put in what could be account number information. I have no way of knowing that, but hopefully the IT folks will lock things down in quick order and find the source of the problem.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Related Posts - Mail Viruses Junk Spam Phishing and now Dark? Okay, I've seen a new term come across the horizon in the battle of the email inbox. First there were viruses, then junk mail, which became known as Spam and then Phishing attacks now we're up to DarkMail. According to scmagazine , an IT security focused publication, the earmarks of......
- Seller Beware... This is a cautionary tale about bank fraud for anyone that sells things. (online or otherwise). A man sold a car online, the buyer sent a check for several thousand more than the buying price. He claimed it was to cover extra shipping costs and for the seller to just......
- Modern Computer Viruses are almost NEVER from whom they claim to be from This is one that I've probably talked about before, but it's worth rehashing because of a call I had this afternoon. A customer had been receiving phone calls and email messages from folks asking that he stop sending them a virus. Essentially all of the viruses were claiming to be......
Related Websites - How to Simplify a Financial Life Many baby boomers are all about simplifying things, including downsizing and getting rid of stuff we don't want or need. I am definitely in that category. As we approach retirement, the simplification process should include your finances. Money remains important but our time becomes more valuable. I have some thoughts on......
- Online Banks: Real People's Thoughts We had a bad experience with Bank of America for our joint account, so my husband and I decided to switch banks. We first look at the banks where we hold our individual accounts. He uses Wachovia and I use a local credit union. We first look at the......
- Guest Post - Inflate Your Savings (Once again, I have the opportunity to share a well-written guest post here on the Amateur Financier. This week, we're looking at a lesson that everyone needs to know, but many people have trouble getting: how to save. It's not the sexiest of financial topics; you won't compete with the......
Similar Posts
- Phishing – Bank of the West Notice take two… (deeper sigh)
- Emails to abuse admins
- Anti phishing information (phighting phishing ?)
- Protecting yourself from Phishing attacks
- Another Phishing update