Monday, July 16, 2007

"Phish and Chips" Bust Nets Italian Phishing Scheme

18 Italians and 8 Eastern Europeans were arrested in a phishing scheme that targeted Poste Italiane's home-banking services and stolen identities from hundreds of unsuspecting users. Poste Italiane is Italy's government postal service which offers banking services. The group sent emails which directed unsuspecting users to a fake website that looked like Poste Italiane's site where information was then gathered.

A 22 y.o. admitted to being the main hacker who sent out emails and directed users to a cloned website overseas, appearing to be the Italian Postal Service where the information was then stolen and users bank accounts were emptied into cards the hackers had secured from Poste Italiane.

Police confiscated, laptops, data backup equipment, phones, false identification and equipment for manufacturing credit cards.

Dallas Computer Repair recommends avoiding identity theft by:
  1. Never open emails from those you do not know
  2. Never follow links from emails from senders you do not know
  3. Always make sure you are on an authenticated secure site which should show a yellow address bar with the following prefix> https:
  4. https: stands for hyper text transfer protocol secure

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