KUALA LUMPUR: Members of the public are reminded to beware of fake websites used to conduct “phishing attacks” by masquerading as trustworthy entities, such as familiar banking sites.
The reminder came from CyberSecurity Malaysia which revealed that the number of phishing attempts is on the rise and accelerating.
The Cyber999 Help Centre has been receiving numerous reports from Malaysian Internet users regarding phishing sites hosted overseas that look exactly like some of the well-known local banks’ e-banking sites,” CyberSecurity Malaysia chief executive officer Husin Jazri said.
He said the phishing attacks also utilised a social engineering tactic — sending spam e-mail messages that looked as through they were sent by well-known local banks. The fraudulent e-mail uses convincing words to trick people into clicking on a link that would open up the phishing website or fake e-banking website, he said.
“Because the fake website looks exacly like the original website, customers are tricked into entering their confidential information like their e-banking usernames and passwords at the fake site,” he said.
This way, the phishing attacker could conveniently steal usernames and passwords of unsuspecting bank customers, he added.
“Banks will never ask users to do account updates, password resets, account unlocking or anything in relation to banking via e-mail messages and websites,” he said.
The centre advised the public to completely ignore such e-mail messages. Those who receive such e-mail are advised to contact their bank for verification, or contactl the Cyber999 Help Centre at 1-300-88-2999, cyber999@cybersecurity.my or www.cybersecurity.my.
CyberSecurity Malaysia is the national cybersecurity specialist centre under the purview of the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry. — Bernama
