Account locked begins ANZ phishing email

Account locked begins ANZ phishing email

Yet again ANZ bank customers are being targeted with phishing emails. This time the email tells the user that their account is locked, although the body of the email actually states that the account is “closed to outgoing transfers”. This email is one of many that we started receiving late yesterday, all targeting ANZ customers.

Figure A shows the email. The subject line of the email reads “Account locked for confirmation of details”, while the sender is “ANZ Bank New Zealand”. The email uses a realistic looking ANZ logo at the top of the email; however, the footer of the email omits any of the information usually seen in emails from banks, such as links to the bank’s help centre, registered business numbers, or contact details.

MailShark Account locked begins ANZ phishing email
Figure A – Click to Enlarge

The purpose of the email appears to be to inform the customer that their account is locked, although the email goes on to say that it is “closed to outgoing transfers”. The email is not specific as to what has actually happened to cause the account to be locked or closed. The email further states that the account will be “permanently closed” if the required action is not taken by the 5/2/2015.

A link is provided in the email for the customer to re-enable their account. As shown in figure A, the text of the link appears to lead back to a genuine ANZ site.

Despite the authentic looking logo, this email is a fake. As mentioned many times previously, the salutation is not personalized, whereas all Bank emails are. The email is confusing; is the account locked (in which case no transactions would be possible) or just closed to a specific type of transaction?

The lack of further information at the footer of the email is another sign. All banks provide some type of footer that contains link to the bank’s website and other information, such as registered business numbers.

Finally, whilst the text of the links appears convincing, mousing over it shows that the link leads to a phishing site. Bottom line is that this email is a fake, and is seeking to steal user details such as bank account details.

Scott Reeves
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