Phishing wave: Santanderbank warns of mails, text messages and calls
A new wave of phishing is targeting customers of Santander Bank. The bank is warning its customers not to disclose access data or similar to criminals.
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Santander Bank is informing its customers about a new wave of phishing. The fraudsters are not only using emails, text messages and fake websites. Santander is also issuing a special warning about phishing calls. The perpetrators pretend to be bank employees on the phone and claim to have discovered a suspicious transaction on the caller's account that urgently needs to be checked or prevented. To appear credible, the fraudsters use call ID spoofing: The number of a genuine Santander customer hotline appears on the victim's display.
The aim of these calls is to obtain online banking access data and the second factor for authentication – such as mobile TANs. The fraudsters can then use these to carry out unauthorized transfers.
The bank suspects that the perpetrators could obtain the customer data in various ways. On the one hand, dubious online stores could be a source. Secondly, the fraudsters could rely on smishing text messages that contain fake banking links. A third possibility would be for malware to be installed on customers' cell phones or computers in order to spy on their data.
"In light of current events, we are warning against fraudsters who use phishing e-mails, text messages, fake pages in online search engines or telephone calls to try to obtain your personal data or online banking access data," the bank's website also states.
Like other credit institutions and companies, Santander Bank emphasizes that it would never ask its customers for passwords by phone, WhatsApp or email or ask them to forward links and approve transactions. If there are indeed inconsistencies in online banking, customers would be asked to come to a branch for a personal meeting, according to Santander.
To protect against such attacks, the bank recommends various precautionary measures: Customers should never disclose access data, mobileTANs or other sensitive information. It is also important not to forward any links to activate SantanderSign.
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In addition, customers should not release any transactions in the SantanderSign app that they did not initiate themselves. "Only access the online banking login via Santander's own pages and install our banking app from the Apple (App Store) and Google (Google Play) app stores without exception," the bank recommends.
What to do in an emergency?
If you have fallen victim to a phishing attack, block your online banking access immediately. The Santander Bank blocking hotline can be reached on 02161/9060791. Santander Bank provides further detailed information on online security on its homepage.
(mack)