News
PandaLabs has identified the sending of a fraudulent mail
June 2008 by Panda
PandaLabs has identified the sending of a fraudulent mail which purports to come from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the United States Federal Government tax collection agency.
The spoof mail subject is "IRS Tax Notification !". Users are informed in the message body that the agency had decided to return them $184.80. To receive the money, they have to click a link. If they do, they are redirected to a spoof IRS page, similar to the original one. Any fiscal or personal details entered are sent to cyber-crooks.
Information requested includes; the social security number, credit card and debit card numbers, postal address, date of birth, etc.
"The relatively small amount of money mentioned in the message prevents users from being suspicious," explains Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, who adds: "data stolen can be sold later to cyber-crooks on the Internet black market, or directly exploited to get users’ money".
PandaLabs reminds users that no official organism or bank requests private data via email, and therefore emails that do, are probably fraudulent.
