There are many threats to users of online banking services these days. Security researchers have issued a new warning regarding the number of “angler phishers’, which seem to mainly target UK customers. By claiming to represent financial institutions on social media, these criminals can cause a lot of economic harm.
Why Angler Phishers Are A Significant Threat
This day and age of social media have made it easier for bank customers to reach out to the company’s customer support. Unfortunately, it also makes it much more difficult to distinguish between legitimate social media accounts and impersonators. It is this latter category that is often referred to as the “angler phishers.”
So far, these online criminals are targeting UK customers, and they have been quite successful already. Once a customer reaches out to the legitimate customer support account on social media, the criminals hijack the conversation. Moreover, they send the victim a malicious link to a fake bank login page, where their login details are captured.
It is not uncommon for criminals to attack bank customers with phishing websites by any means. This type of scam activity has been around for several decades now, although the involvement of social media seems to make the criminals’ job a lot easier. Despite several of these fake social accounts being shut down rather quickly, experts are predicting a new wave of attacks will be coming soon.
For bank customers in the UK, as well as the rest of the world, this is anything but positive news. Trusting a bank is hard enough, and criminals make it difficult to reach out via social media whenever an issue arises. After all, one can never be sure whether or not they are dealing with the real account.
One possible solution to circumvent this problem would be not t use social media at all. Financial discussions should not take place in a public place, and platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are not the best place to sort things out. While it is convenient, customers also have to use some common sense.
Another option is for consumers to fully control their finances themselves at all times. To do so, they could start looking at Bitcoin, which allows users to be in full control over their money at any time, using any device. Venturing into Bitcoin carries certain risks, but keeping funds in a bank account does not make it any safer.
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