Banking on the Innocent Taking the Bait

I have to say that a combination of programmes keep my inbox relatively free of the dreaded spam, but in a fleetingly idle moment today I actually took a look at some of the rubbish that passes through my junk mail and my eye was drawn to urgent communications from Barclays Bank.

Now I have not been a customer with Barclays for many years, so it was easy to dismiss the idea they needed anything from me, but looking at these emails in the format they will appear in some inboxes I was pretty shocked.

Take a look!


Cunningly the whole piece of text is an image with a hyperlink to a website that while nothing like the Barclays website proper, is nevertheless a convincing attempt to look like a bank site. What is outrageous is how the phishers have lifted the bank's text on security wholesale - how cheeky?!

Now I like to think that I will always spot these fraudulent attempts should they slip past my front line security, but how many people do get caught out?

More worrying is what the fraudsters will do next, for they will surely trade up as more people get wise to their artifice.