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Phishing Attacks From Chinese Bank Servers
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-03-13
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A major, state-owned bank in China runs a web server hosting phishing sites going after major U.S. banks and other institutions. These scams include both Chase Bank and eBay customers and started circulating on Saturday.
After tracing the phishing attacks back to the IP addresses, they went back to the Shanghai branch of the China Construction Bank (CCB). Apparently, the pages are found in hidden directories in the server's main page displaying a config error. According to Netcraft, this is the first time they've seen a bank' infrastructure being used to attack another institution.
"Email scammers are looking for new ways to fleece the unwary, and this time have come up with a new twist: asking people to help in a survey for a cash reward," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Internet users who bank online need to be wary of these kinds of tricks, and be extremely careful about what websites they hand their personal information over to before they end up penniless."
The email sent out offers $20 for filling out a questionnaire discussing the usability of the Chase online banking site. Then the it requests identification information including the users credit card number, the pin number, card verification number, social security number and the mother's maiden name. The information then heads to a processing server in India. The spoof sites, up for several months now gets its inspiration from chaseinline.chase.com, stealing images and style sheets from the site.
"It's important to realise that Chase Manhattan have done nothing wrong. Scammers are posing as the well known bank because Chase Manhattan is an established and well-trusted name, and they hope it will encourage victims to hand over their credentials," continued Cluley.
On the same Saturday, a run on eBay phishing hit as well, spoofing an eBay login screen. The CCB is a massive, state-owned commercial bank with more than 14,000 branches all over China.
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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