<p>An email is out, from what we can gather sent specifically to addresses ending in .edu, asking for validation of account detail information. </p>
<p>If anyone has a son or daughter with Wachovia accounts or interests, it may be useful to give them a heads up to ignore this email, and/or report it to Wachovia’s security team. </p>
<p>This particular phishing email is very well done, and it’s easy to see how someone, particularly a very busy college student, might think it’s really from Wachovia, and they might enter their account information as requested. </p>
<p>I would add these to any of the common phishing traps out there right now:
Several other major banks, several major credit card companies, ebay, paypal. The common thread in all of them is validation of your personal info, or in the case of ebay, feigned purchase you supposedly made but didn’t pay for, or the opposite. These have only come to my junk email account, but if they’re now targeting college systems, they may show up there as well.</p>
<p>I appreciate the Wachovia phishing alert. Along these lines, and per a link you provided in another thread, I subscribed to the Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report and I read it every day. It’s excellent - thank you for sharing it.</p>
<p>I received good advice from Paypal, when I reported a phishing attempt over a year ago. Never respond to or follow links from any e-mail - even if you have reason to believe the e-mail is genuine, ie you just bought something on Ebay. Always exit your e-mail account and log onto the bank/CC/ Paypal directly, then inquire whether or not they need your info, or pay at that point. It is a simple, common sense thing, just needs reminding.</p>
<p>Knowing all the above cautions, I found it funny and sad when two years ago, turbotax sent me an email to verify my request for direct deposit for a rebate. By every test I could do, the link was legit, but stupid. So, I did NOT verify, and got a check in the mail instead.</p>
<p>Never did figure out how they could have been so dense.</p>
<p>I think that it is good to tell students - heck, everyone - that banks, PayPal, and the like will NEVER contact you via email. They use telephones. they have your name and number. Furthermore, they already have your personal info and do not need you to “validate” it. You may be asked for DOB and last four of your social, but that’s about it. </p>
<p>When you follow links, you’ll be taken to a page that looks a LOT like one that the company uses. The website will be different however. You may see something like validation.wachovia.com, but most of the time, you’ll see something like <a href=“http://10.23.71.27%5B/url%5D”>http://10.23.71.27</a> (just made that up). </p>
<p>When in doubt, log on to the company’s website by yourself, separately from the email, and try to find the validation page. </p>
<p>Don’t get too wrapped up in SunTrust v. Wachovia v. PayPal v. person in Nigeria… if someone’s asking for your personal info via email, you can be sure that it’s a scam. When in doubt, do an independent check.</p>
<p>Be on the look out for another one involving Fifth Third Bank. Firfth Third bank will never send emails requesting personnal or account information. This policy is also exercised by most financial institutions.</p>
<p>DJR4, I feel the same way about the daily report - it’s the very first thing I read every morning, sometimes bleary-eyed when it’s still dark outside. </p>
<p>This Wachovia scam is one of the most unsettling I’ve seen so far - expert social engineering, and very, very well done. I can easily see even people who know scams very well at least giving it a second look.</p>
<p>The problem with recognizing phishing is that I get E-mails from E-bay when i win something, with a link to pay. Of course, if you follow that link you do not re-enter your account info, it leads you to PAypal, and they show you the account with the last digits of the credit card blanked out - you don’t re-enter the card number. BUT, the phishing e-mail looked really similar, including a link, it just asked to re-enter info.</p>