ManyMedia

Heard from your bank lately? The mail really, really looks like it’s from the bank. But do you think for one moment that the bank will feel responsible if you click on the scam email and confirm your bank details, then loose all of your funds to an outside trickster?

Typically, phishing scam e-mails appear to have been sent from the victim’s bank, and contain a link to a fake version of the bank’s Web site and instructions to log on to the site to verify their credentials with the bank.

Rob Forsyth, managing director at anti-virus vendor Sophos, believes that the techniques used by online confidence tricksters in the latest Westpac e-mail indicate the scheme is reaching new heights of sophistication.

According to Sophos the scammers have become better impostors, incorporating phrasing and wording into the email that the bank’s customers would be familiar with from previous authentic advisories it had issued such as: ‘Westpac will never ask for your personal or login details by e-mail’ — even though it then proceeds to direct the reader to do just that.

Content, Identity bank, credentials, fraud, mail, phishing, scams, SOHO nets

It should be no surprise that the paycheck is going digital. Much less frequently will we feel the tactile nature of an exchange of promises involving money.

More employers are replacing traditional paychecks with payroll cards, a new type of system that allows employees to get money out of cash machines instead of cashing checks.

Instead of getting a paycheck, employees can opt to get cards that are credited each pay period with their wages. Workers can use the cards to withdraw money from ATMs or they can use them like a debit card to make purchases.

Some users have to pay a transaction fee or monthly charge for the cards; in other cases, fees are waived. Employees who use the payroll cards often get a paper or electronic pay stub with wage and tax information.

Content bank, cards, debit, digital, money, paycheck, tracking, wages