CYBERSECURITY MALAYSIA: BEWARE OF FAKE INTERNET BANKING WEBSITES

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 19 (Bernama) -- The number of phishing attempts is on the
rise and accelerating, according to an advisory released by the Cyber999 Help
Centre of CyberSecurity Malaysia.

The Cyber999 Help Centre has been receiving numerous reports from local
internet users regarding phishing websites hosted overseas.These look exactly
like that of some of the well-known local bank's, e-banking websites.

These phishing websites or fake websites are used to conduct a "phishing
attack", which involves manipulating the weak side of human security.This is
done by masquerading as a trustworthy entity, for example, a copycat of a
familiar banking website.

The "phishing attack" also utilises a kind of social engineering tactic such
as sending spam emails that look as though sent by a well-known local bank, it
said in statement here Saturday.

The fraudulent e-mail uses convincing words to trick people into clicking a
link that would open up the phishing website or fake e-banking website.

As the fake website looks exactly like the original, customers
are tricked into entering their confidential information, like e-banking
user-names and passwords into the fake e-banking website.

This way, the "phishing attacker" could conveniently steal user-names and
passwords of unsuspecting bank customers.

Banks never ask users to do account updates, password reset, account
unlocking or anything in relation to banking via emails and URLs.

"If you do receive such e-mails and it looks like it is from the banks or
any financial institution, our advice is to completely ignore them.

"If you do get curious, please contact your bank for verification or contact
our Cyber999 Help Centre," said CyberSecurity Malaysia chief executive officer,
Lt Col (Rtd.) Husin Bin Jazri.

CyberSecurity Malaysia is the national cyber security specialist centre
under the purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
--BERNAMA