Slashdot Mirror
Phishers Get Phoney
Nick Johnson writes to mention a new twist on phishing. From the article: "The spammed message warns of a problem with a bank account and instructs the recipient to dial a phone number to resolve it. The caller is connected to a voice response system that is made to sound exactly like the bank's own system. The phone system identifies itself to the target as the financial institution and prompts them to enter account number and PIN."
They have to go thru the trouble to make the card, only to find out it doesn't work. And their face pop up at the video camera's of the ATMs all the time with failed withdrawals.
I doubt they are making cards and showing up an ATM machine to use these numbers. They can buy merchanise over the internet, using each of their collected numbers until one works. Having a few bad numbers or accounts with little cash in them does not pose a significant problem to an operation like this.
Banks already do this - it is called secure messaging, and it is web based. You get an e-mail telling you that you have a message, the e-mail has no links or phone numbers (since you know your bank's web site), and you log into a secure web site to send and receive messages.