Economic Meltdown Creates Scam Opportunities
Monday, November 17th, 2008While the economic meltdown is causing problems for most, scammers are exploiting it for new fraud opportunities, say security experts.
The Chicago Tribune reports an increase in phishing, the scam that uses fake e-mails to get people to hand over personal financial information that can be used to commit identity theft.
Dave Marcus, director of security research at security company McAfee, says that the banking crisis, with its mergers and takeovers, gives scammers the opportunity to send out phishing e-mails claiming that personal account information is needed because of the changes. McAfee began seeing phishing reports related to the crisis shortly after the failure and sale of Washington Mutual Bank in late September.
