'Law abiding citizen' and other phishing emails - 6 April 2017

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau has issued an alert which explains how fraudsters are deploying banking trojans to unsuspecting victims in order to compromise their banking credentials and passwords.

The fraudster claims in the email to be a ‘law-abiding citizen’ notifying the individual that their information has been breached. They attach a file containing the ‘leaked’ information for the victim to see what has been exposed. The attachment is a ‘.dot’ file, usually titled with the email recipient’s name, which contains a banking trojan.

You should never open an attachment in any email that you are suspicious about.

An example of the email text can be found below:

In addition, law firms have been reporting a number of fraudulent emails.

For example, a cash room partner will get an email, apparently from a partner, but on closer enquiry it’s a very dubious looking email address. The emailer asks for an urgent payment and eventually provides some bank details, hoping to con the firm into sending a payment.

Please be vigilant for suspicious emails and ensure that all staff are aware of the threats posed by email scams. You can report an attempted fraud or scam to us.