Phuck! - Ive Been Phished!

UK.
Late last week I came home to find a phone message asking me to get in touch with the fraud department of my Bank here in the UK urgently. The bank official (as part of the message) asked if I had authorised a substantial payment from my account that day.

As I bank on the internet I first checked to see what the movement was on my account. Sure enough, a payment of nearly ┬г1,500 had been taken from my account. When I spoke to the bank official they told me not to worry as they had caught the movement in time and the sum of money would be returned to my account. She then went on to ask me what 'preventative' software I have installed on my PC. As it happens I have Spyware (Spydoctor) Anti-virus (AVG) and a firewall XP SP2. I also have a Junkmail filter.

I then had to contact the local police and report the crime. Fill in a lot of paperwork for the bank giving them permission to work with the police to pursue the criminal(s) etc.
Fortunately I do not keep large amounts of money in my current account, however if I had been on my bi annual trip to the LOS what would have been the result on my return to the UK? Loss of the money?

In the next few years it is my intention to live in Thailand and i thought that I had the answer to moving my money around, ie on the internet. I am now of the opinion that internet banking in not that safe. If 'hackers' can get into Government defence systems then they can surely arrange a few transactions from internet bankers accounts!

So, for you expats that bank in your homeland - how do you move your money around, and what preventative methods do you employ, if it's not too much of a personal question.


:argue:

Thanks
rogered

PS. My internet/phone banking on my insistance is cancelled until further notice. Should I get reconnected?

I am now of the opinion that internet banking in not that safe.

I agree with you. I get about six phishing messages a day, the most frequent being spoofs of Paypal, Barclays, and various other UK Banks I've never had accounts with.

Yesterday, I used my on=line banking for the first time in about six months. I never use it from our home wifi system from which I can see about six of my neighbours networks.

As to what you should set up when you move, from what I've read here there are local banks who will give expats manageable accounts.

If you use internet banking, it's a good idea to log in everyday or two to look for unusual activity. In that respect, it's actually better than NOT having internet banking access because without it, you may not be aware of the fraudulant activity until you receive a statement. The main problem right now it that the bad guys are using key loggers to get your login ID and password. Thankfully, many banking institutes are changing to a "mouse click" screen driven password input system that the keyloggers can't see. That should help abit.

I have bank accounts in four countries, including Thailand, I use them extensively on god knows how many networks and I've never had a problem in as many years as Internet banking has been possible. The topic is phishing but there's nothing in the post that suggests that the author has been phished. There is no explanation at all as to the origin of the mysterious transaction. If he's been phished then frankly that's a self-inflicted wound

As for managing transactions online at a Thai bank, then the bad news is that Thai Internet banking is primitive by world standards. At Bangkok Bank I cannot set up a third-party to whom I can transfer funds without first going into a bank branch and filling out the usual reams of paperwork. Even then the beneficiary also has to bank with Bangkok Bank. I cannot transfer to someone at another Thai bank. Things will improve. However finding a bank that will give you Internet banking access (vs. simply having a bank account that you can access via an ATM) is problematical, given that most will say "You must have a work permit, not just a long-term visa". Supposedly this is a government regulation - who knows! This Is Thailand - Amazing Thailand

Thanks for your comments.

Homintern
Yes I have been phished. An amount of money was taken out of my account without my knowledge or authorisation.

The origin of the mysterious transaction is not yet known.

If this was a self inflicted wound then I and the Bank would like to know how it was acheived. Perhaps you could enlighten us!

rogered

[RonanTheBarbarian]

"Phishing" means thieves sending an email (usually pretending to be from your bank) in order to induce you to tell the thieves your bank details.


Which they then use to clean out your bank account.


Saying that you have been "phished" suggests that you fell for this scam.

Yes I have been phished. An amount of money was taken out of my account without my knowledge or authorisation.
Clearly you dont understand the word "phished". It refers to an e-mail purporting to come from your bank, asking you to click on a link and re-enter your login and password. If you did that, you've been phished, and it's self-inflicted. Banks never, ever send out such e-mails. If that isn't what's happened, then you've been robbed, defrauded or whatever, but you haven't been phished. Phished does not, by itself, mean "money was taken out of my account without my knowledge or authorisation"

As someone else says there's also a piece of software that you could have loaded on your PC, via opening an e-mail from someone you didn't know, called a keyboard logger. It logs all of your keystrokes and periodically sends them off where they are analysed to see if you have visited any banking sites. That's not phishing either, but it's the reason behind the sort of questions your bank asked you

Phishing is usually used to describe a scenario whereby a bank customer is conned into revealing access details of his account by someone "casting" a phony message hence the term "phishing".

It's probably harsh to call it a self-inflicted wound as there must have been a malicious party involved. The phishing attempts at work, I receive on a daily basis usually come with tell-tale clues, like asking me to do things the bank would never ask by e-mail, misspellings, and references to accounts I've never held. My home providers seem to protect me from this or maybe it's because my work e-mail adress is the destination of an adress shown on a public site.


On one occassion my actual bankers phoned about test transactions of ┬г20 and changed my cards PDQ when I could tell them I'd not been to a certain town. One card, from another banker, I keep only for foreign travel so I ring them with my travel dates just before I leave. This means their Artificial Intelligence won't get neurotic when transactions start again. On another occassion my card protection insurers rang and while putting me through the identity routine I insisted on putting them through my identity routine. He couldn't tell me the postcode on the last piece of snail mail I'd received from them so I got back to him via a known number of the company he claimed to be from.

Really, you can't be too careful these days. I know that Homi is a fan of a certain US/Global bank. I had accounts with them about 15 years ago. Just before I was go on an RTW trip they mislaid my salary payment. Never again.

There is nothing to stop sound customers having various accounts with various providers in various countries and I believe that dropping in occassionally is as good a way as having banking relations with them as complex and vulnerable technology. Not all your eggs should be in the same basket.

It looks like I haven't been phished - just nearly robbed. Hook, line & sinker.

rogered

[cottmann]

UK. As it happens I have Spyware (Spydoctor) Anti-virus (AVG) and a firewall XP SP2. I also have a Junkmail filter.

My sympathies - I got caught the same way but my bank suspended both my Internet banking and credit card. I understand that recently the Brazilians have caught groups of internet thieves in one of their states who used Trojan programs to copy internet banking users key strokes. The AVG software won't protect you against such malware (it is against viruses!), and Spyware doesn't protect against all such malware either. The firewall is really protection against hackers, I believe. You could consider downloading and installing the free Microsoft anti-spyware program as well as installing an anti-Trojan program. SpyWare and Spybot and Spyware Shredder are three good programs that I use. In fact, I run multiple programs at least once a week because none of the programs catches all the malware that is out there. I also use Mozilla as my internet server as it is more secure than the Microsoft IE program, though I still have to use IE on occasions, which is when most of the malware seems to be installed. You will need to update regularly, too.


PS. My internet/phone banking on my insistance is cancelled until further notice. Should I get reconnected?

Only when you've thoroughly de-bugged your computer and changed all your access passwords, etc.

It looks like I haven't been phished - just nearly robbed. Hook, line & sinker. rogered
Or possibly rogered

could you please remove my name
thanks

the best way is to keep 2 bank accounts-one main one you never access by internet , credit card or ATM machine. And another for everyday expenses which you can top up by deposits.

Phishing, as previous posters have stated, is the scammer trying to get a victim to disclose all the account details. This usually takes the form of an email purporting to be from a reputable institution asking you to visit their web site and verify your details. Paypal is especially prone to this as anybody who uses eBay has to disclose their paypal name when paying, so all they need to do is persuade you to visit a phishing site and login, hey presto. The phishing sites are usually very well constructed and almost indistinguishable from the real thing. There is a very handy little utility though called spoofstick that gives you a double check on any website you visit. It is available here (http://www.spoofstick.com/) . I would recommend anyone who uses Internet banking or paypal or the like to install it.

Sites like this one, paypal, hotmail and most Thai banks only use a single stage login process. That means you just need a username and password to get in. This type of login is easily captured by key logging software or even your isp. (Some dishonest Internet cafes deliberately install such software and then profit from the results, either directly or by selling usernames/passwords)

Most UK banks have a 2 stage login process, with the second stage involving a challenge/response situation. For instance they may ask you to input the 2nd and 5th characters of a phrase you have previously selected. Because the selection is done by mouse it defeats keyloggers, and because the whole phrase is never used together other methods such as sniffing also are defeated. Any email which asks you to confirm in its entirety your secret phrase is a sure sign of a phishing attack.

Have you ever wondered how these guys get your email address to start with? Have you ever received one of those round robin emails that says "forward to everyone in your address book"? or forwarded a good joke or picture to many people? By the time some of these emails have done the rounds there may be over a thousand email addresses in them, and some people specialise in extracting and selling such information. You can buy such lists on-line. Some unscrupulous web sites even sell their membership email addresses - they are worth more if they can attach any information such as age, location, sexual preference as marketing can then be profiled.
So if you must send out round robin emails, use the bcc function.

You can turn on the phishing detector that's built into IE7, and some email clients also recognise phishing emails

Of course, anyone with half a brain will recognize a phishing email from 100 yards, without a program to do it for them.

[bkkguy]

the security patches, anti-phishing, anti-malware, anti-spyware solutions will always be one step behind the bad guys, and phishing and malware distribution rely on often sophisticated sociial engineering to intice people to do stupid things that any amount of software solutions will do nothing to stop - the weakest link is still the human user!

the answer is not bigger and better antidotes to fool people into thinking they are secure, you need better educated users, better security systems at financial institutions - better ways to eliminate or minimise the effects phishing scams and malware can have

bkkguy

[Hmmm]

There is a very handy little utility though called spoofstick that gives you a double check on any website you visit. It is available here (http://www.spoofstick.com/) . I would recommend anyone who uses Internet banking or paypal or the like to install it.


gwm4asian, I recognize your good intentions, and I suspect this software does what it says it does. But anyone here who downloaded and installed this software without thinking twice - just because you said they should - has just demonstrated how easy it is to separate people from their savings.

I too have recommended bits of software on this board, and if you think I can be trusted, you're nuts ! :-)

Before you install anything, at least google to find a review that might tell you that there is something better available for the job, or maybe that the software in question is a well-known trojan.

[Dboy]

Of course, anyone with half a brain will recognize a phishing email from 100 yards, without a program to do it for them.

Well said. In addition, get familiar with the communications and privacy policies of your bank. Many banks only communicate with their customers through postal mail and phone. And if you have never given your email address to your bank, then it obviously cant be your bank emailing you about your account. If you use online banking, you should be able to specify the communication types on your account.

In this case though, it sounds like spyware rather that phish. Your bank cannot control the security of your system, therefore the liability is with the customer in these cases. If the bank returns the money then they are just being very nice. One option would be to require all bank customers use a particular antispyware tool, and then check that when you login to online banking. Hard to implement though, and customers would no doubt bitch about it.

If this was a wire transfer out, then check the banks WTX policies related to how they verify wires. Its possible they messed up. Might consider disabling wire transfers and ACH on your account unless you use that service.


Dboy

gwm4asian, I recognize your good intentions, and I suspect this software does what it says it does. But anyone here who downloaded and installed this software without thinking twice - just because you said they should - has just demonstrated how easy it is to separate people from their savings.

I too have recommended bits of software on this board, and if you think I can be trusted, you're nuts ! :-)

Before you install anything, at least google to find a review that might tell you that there is something better available for the job, or maybe that the software in question is a well-known trojan.

Hmmm, I appreciate your sentiments, and you are quite right to chide me. Just to clarify the point though, the link I provided did contain further links to articles in UK PC World www.pcworld.com/article/id,116186-page,1/article.html (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116186-page,1/article.html) and Australian Computerworld www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1368408307;fp;16;fpid;0 (http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1368408307;fp;16;fpid;0) both of which i think are reputable publications.

Interestingly, one of the articles is by someone with more than half a brain who describes how he was very nearly fooled by a very well crafted phishing email.

[Hmmm]

No chiding intended towards you gwm4asian, only towards anyone who might have downloaded and installed the software without doing a bit of necessary homework.

As you've pointed out, clues indicating the legitimacy of software are not hard to find.

I had a similar situation to reogered. ┬г2500 was charged to my credit card. My UK bank picked it up as the transactions were in Seoul at 1.30 p.m. and the card had been used in Bangkok at 12.30 p.m.

I would have thought that reogereed would have been reassured by the vigilance of his bank and their readiness to refund his lost moneys. I was and I know of Americans whose boyfriends took money from their accounts - supposedly they had never been given the pin numbers. The banks refunded the lost funds which |I thought remarkable.

The banks save so much money with customers using ATMs and internet - compared to regional banks with staff - that they have to encourage confidence in their useage and offer guarentees against ATM fraud and even guarentees for goods bought on one's credit card - for UK citizens this covers abroad as well!

There is no point in getting all paranoid. Take sensible precautions only and check what you bank covers you for losses.

I have to say thay these precautions do NOT apply to Thai banks |ATM or Credit Cards that I know of and you have no guarentees whatsoever and reporting stolen cards can take time. I read of one guy who was mugged and they held a knife to his throat until he gave them his pin number. The banks response was "You should not have given them the number!"

[Boxer]

Hominterm have you tired Kasikorn Bank online? I have used it a few years now never had problems and can transfer funds to any bank or most payments or persons anywhere in Thailand. They also use two stage profile checking to log in and on transactions, one via SMS.
As for Barclays and Barclaycard Visa they are very quick in noticing any unusual buying patterns or countries and call you immediately to check, well they have with me twice now. Best to tell them your travel plans before you go. New cards are a problem getting them etc as they send to UK address's and remember to check fees on old card until your sure all is clear.

yes could u please remove my name from the post.
thanks

Two further points to watch out for:

Some Thai ATM cards can also be used in shops like Direct Debit/Credit Cards. So if you loose the card it could be used even without ther PIN number

Don't know how big a problem it is in Thailand, but certainly in Hong Kong and other Asian Countries Credit Card cloning is a problem. It is not unkown for a waiter in a restaurant to carry a small card reader in his pocket - by the time he has walked from your table to the cashier the card has been cloned.

[Brad the Impala]

Akshay, I appreciate you have now twice posted your request to have your name removed from this thread, understandably for someone with your unusual name. I checked you by googling and came up with the same results.

Unfortunately, for these circumstances, this is not the most actively moderated board! So your request may well have been overlooked. I would suggest sending private messages or emails to our moderators Elephantspike, www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2 (http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2) and jinks www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=89 (http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=89)

Good Luck

Akshay, this is not the most actively moderated board!

I'LL say!

That's an UNDERSTATEMENT.

OVERLOOKED?

Good luck.

Akshay, this is not the most actively moderated board!

I'LL say!

That's an UNDERSTATEMENT.

OVERLOOKED?

Who's this Jinx?

Good luck.

One of my banks is pretty good. I`ve been phoned in Thailand twice to confirm its me using my card at the ATM - sometimes they also do it if im travelling in UK and draw over ┬г100 in another city. First Direct Internet banking.

[elephantspike]

Am I missing something here? The only place I can find the name "Akshay" in this thread is where it appears as Akshay's username. Please show me where else it appears and I shall gladly emove-ray it.
Thanks

[jinks]

DITTO to the Boss

I have no idea what this is on about.

[elephantspike]

OK, I just checked the google listing for this page when you search for " akshay jugran". If you click on the "cache" link under that listing you will see that it says at the top of the cache page

These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: akshay jugran

It looks like someone is google-bombing this page to come up in searches for "Ashkay Jungran", for some mysterious reason.

That means that other sites have links pointing to this page where the text in the link contains your name, Ashkay. You'd have to contact those sites. I have no control over what other sites link to us here, or over what anchor-text they use in thier links. Or better yet, contact Google. That might at least be good for a laugh or two. Sorry.