Phishing : The Real Picture

Almost gone are the days when banks were robbed by a bunch of mean looking guys with ram trucks, balaclavas, guns, and get-away cars, holding staff and innocent customers hostage.

Prospective robbers now face armed security guards, anti-ram protection, bullet-free glass, tainted money, silent alarms, exploding dye packs, SWAT teams, helicopters with infra-red search tools, movement triggered GPS units – all designed specifically to keep crooks from stealing banks’ and customers’ money.

Under the old order big-shot criminals robbed banks, while muggers robbed customers. Now the big-shots have discovered there is no need to rob the bank at all: they can rob customers “digitally”, both individually and en masse.

When almost no-one is able to do anything to stop these fraudulent attacks, we have a serious problem. The crime is called phishing. It is the near perfect Internet bank robbing heist, and at present, alarmingly, there is a very limited chance of the crooks being caught. I want to focus on one phishing gang, who are now among the world’s most active and successful criminals: we at the global security watchdog E-Secure-IT have dubbed them the “Rocky Gang”.

The record to date suggests that no legal or law enforcement agency can stop these cyber criminals attacking bank customers. Worse, banks are threatened and blackmailed if they try to stop fake criminal websites impersonating them, and in return, the criminals render real banking websites inaccessible.

The experience of an Australian Bank in October last year demonstrates how far the Rocky Gang seem to have financial institutions at their mercy.