Natwest Scam

A new phishing fraud was identified today, that is so insidious it forced natwest bank to close down portions of its online bank to UK customers.

Technical details on how the scam is carried out are still unknown, but it appears as if an e-mail is being sent along with a trojan or other type of malware script directing customers to NatWest Bank's official website but then popping up bogus alerts to the consumer.

If you visit NatWest homepage you will see an alert stating, "Fraud Alert. Do not enter any online banking details into pop-ups/new windows that may appear in front of this home page."

10 million americans fell victim to identity theft last year and the numbers are growing at an alarming rate. AntiPhishing last report shows their number of phishing complaints are up 4,000%.

A study by Gartner Group done this June puts the total ammount of money being scammed through phishing at 2.4 Billion US Dollars over the last 12 months. A more recent survey was carried out which puts the number closer to 500 million. Either way it is a huge and rapidly growing problem.

BTW, It was great to see NatWest act decisively and quickly taking extreme measures to help protect their customers against this!