Blogs

In the recent days, we have seen many emails claiming to be from your bank and asking you to provide the user name, password, ATM Number PIN etc... First of all let me emphasize the fact that these are fake emails. Banks or any other responsible companies will never ask for these details of yours for any reason.

Let me reiterate that never ever respond to such emails. Do not click on the links in these emails as this will lead to fake sites. Entering your online banking username and password to these fake sites will make an attacker to take control of your account and withdraw all the money you have in your account. This scam is normally known as Phishing

I will post another post on the phishing later. In this post, I would like to emphasize the money mule scam which is the hidden side of the phishing.

Extract from Wikipedia about money mules

Today morning I visited the Apollo Clinic in Salmiya for visiting the pediatrition as my son was not well. The nurse in the reception greeted me and asked if I have an appointment. As I did not have an appointment, I had to wait for sometime to get my child's health file from the filing room.

Meanwhile, I have been asked to pay 8 KD as the consulting fee. As I did not have the currency, I have used the debit card over the KNET. Immediately after the request was approved, the recepionist has entered my card number to their computer including the expiry dates. Opps.

Are they allowed to store my credit / debit card data? Being someone in Information Security and specially in the credit card security, I am bit worried that these people may get into trouble.

Many times, the card data being captured are not securly stored by these companies as it requires more investment.