Thursday, April 22, 2010

Malware alert: Macquarie Online Alert

I received a couple of emails today with the subject Macquarie Online Alert. Because of my dictionary work I thought they may have been from the Macquarie dictionary group. I had to smile because in effect I was tricked into receiving the email. At that point is was obvious it was a phishing attempt.

The following is the body of the message with the link removed.

Important information

New Security Features
You have 1 new Alert Message !

Resolution Center: Your account is limited! Click to Resolve

Thank you for using Macquarie Internet Banking.

As with all phishing attempts you should immediately delete these emails. In this case OzEfilter did its job, it was me that decided to manually accept the email.

Also you may notice the use of the spelling of Center. In an earlier post I mentioned that many spammers use poor grammar, punctuation and spelling. As Australians we have an added advantage that many of the spammers don't realise our preferred Australian English spelling differs from the American. Incorrect spelling for Australia is also something to look for in suspicious emails.

- Kelvin Eldridge

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