Government Issues Warning on Internet “Phishing” Websites

A warning has been issued against ”phishing” scam sites designed to steal personal information that are disguised as a financial firm’s internet homepage.

On July 5, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said they found a “phishing” scam site stealing personal information very similar to a bank’s homepage, but with a hacking program installed, and asked internet banking users to be cautious.

For example, the FSC asked users to visit a relevant bank’s homepage using an internet search engine, even if you are asked to confirm your bank account through an email written in the name of “__bank” or “__bank official.”

E-mails or online bulletin boards containing phrases such as “urgent security notice”; “your account is about to be suspended temporarily unless you ignore requests of e-mail”; and “you are required to update your bank account number and social security number as you have a problem with your account,” are highly likely to be “phishing” sites.

In addition, you should be careful of homepage addresses ending with other suffixes other than “com” or “co.kr.” The disclosed “phishing” site ended with the suffix “wo.ro.”

The FSC has asked people to report possible “phishing” sites to relevant financial firms or the Korea Information Security Agency (02-118).

Ki-Jeong Ko koh@donga.com