Westpac fearless of hackers
Westpac fearless of hackers
Westpac claims they are winning the battle against hackers who keep trying to steal money from their customers through hoax websites.
Not only can they reassure their customers that they will be reimbursed by any loss funds, but they have the resources in place to close down these websites in minutes.
This is done through 24/7 monitoring of these issues and close contact with the Federal police.
Here is an example of the latest hoax email that encouraged customers to enter their account and password details into a fake site: "Dear valued Westpac Cutomer!Due to the increased fraudulent activity within our site we are undertaking a review of our member accounts. You are requested to visit our site by following the link given below.
"This is required for us to continue to offer you a safe and risk free environment to send and receive money online. Be sure to enter both Customer Account No & Password otherwise your account will not be verified and your access to the account will be blocked.
"Thank you.http://olb.westpac.com.auCopyright 2004 - Westpac Banking Corporation ABN 33 007 457 141"
This was closed down within a couple of hours, but a spokesperson for Westpac is very confident that their customers are very well educated about these kind of hoaxes and know how to avoid them: "Our key priority is to educate our customers about these emails/websites and what to do and what not to do about them. We have a lot of information on our own official website on how to deal with them.
"We get these sites shut down as soon as we detect them, which often involves liaising with the federal authorities, and even overseas authorities, such as the FBI. Also, the banking industry put together an agreement with the telecommunication industry here in Australia in December to get these websites blocked as soon as we detect them at the major ISPs. That's been very effective to minimise the risk to our customers.
Its an issue that's been running for twelve months now and I think there is a very good level of awareness in the community for these things to be ignored or deleted, because virus are also associated with these emails. In the same way as you lock your front door, you should also keep your anti-virus software up-to-date on your PC."
Westpac admits that these hoax emails/websites are becoming more sophisticated but they are confident that they have the resources in place to minimise the damage to their customers.
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