Phishing to target bank accounts escalates before Tet

According to statistics from the Anti-Phishing Project, a non-profit project founded by computer security expert Ngo Minh Hieu, aka HieuPC, fraudulent websites designed to steal bank account, e-wallet and credit card information are mushrooming ahead of Tet 2023, which falls in late January.

The project discovered 130 fraudulent websites in November 2022 and nearly 500 since.

Fraudsters purporting to be bank employees call people and advise them on drawing cash using credit cards at low interest rates or increasing credit card limits.

Then on social network accounts like Zalo or mobile phones the fraudsters send links that look like coming from banks, VPBank warned.

After clicking the links, victims are required to enter information like card numbers, expiration date and OTP.

Using the information, the fraudsters withdraw money from the victims’ bank accounts.

Fraudsters also send text messages with striking content such as a warning about an abnormal transaction that needs authentication, need to change passwords or temporary locking of an account.

The messages end by telling the receivers to access a link that has a malicious code which enables fraudsters to steal confidential information and transfer money from the victims’ bank accounts.

Fraudsters also impersonate bank employees in other ways such as assisting in loan disbursement and asking victims to pay a fee to get it done, according to Agribank.