The Braintree Electric Light Department (BELD) of Massachusetts, US, is warning computer users to overlook a malicious spam mail targeting the company’s customers.

The fraudulent message that apparently comes from [email protected] represents the Webmail Admin of BELD.net. The content of the fake or phishing e-mail says that BELD, which is upgrading its e-mail center and database, is eliminating all defunct BELD.NET Webmail accounts so that more space could be created for fresh accounts and the overall storage space may be increased.

It then says that users who are interested to maintain their accounts on the BELD Webmail must furnish personal information such as their name, date-of-birth and account username and password to BELD. The message also warns that if users fail to follow the given instructions, their accounts on BELD Webmail would be temporarily suspended.

The message further tells the recipients that the current upgrading is part of a security procedure to protect users as well as their mailboxes. In addition, it states that BELD apologizes for any problem that the users of BELD Webmail might encounter due to the upgrading and concludes by offering thanks to the recipients for cooperation.

Consequently, BELD Help Desk officials advise users to avoid opening or replying to the e-mails arriving with the aforementioned text.

While the BELD phishing scam is making rounds on the Internet, another similar scam is reported that aims at the consumers of Landline Internet Mobile Entertainment (LIME) of Cayman Islands (UK). Therefore, LIME is cautioning its consumers to beware of e-mail messages arriving from [email protected] with the subject line saying “Dear Candw.ky User”. And just as with the BELD e-mail, the LIME e-mail too offers regrets for any inconvenience caused to its consumers.

Meanwhile, security specialists stated that sending fraudulent e-mails from lawful Webmails such as LIME and BELD represents conventional phishing employed by the phishers. On getting such e-mails end-users feel so impressed that they respond immediately without thinking twice; as a result, they lose personal information such as usernames and passwords in the current phishing incident.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.spamfighter.com/News-11975-Phishing-E-mails-Targeted-BELD-LIME-Customers.htm

Protection against email Phishing fraud and identity theft

What is Phishing attacks?

Phishing is the act of sending an email to a user falsely claiming to be a legitimate company in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The email takes the user to a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate company already has. The website, however, is a fraud and set up only to steal the user’s information. For example, 2004 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received emails supposedly from Mastercard claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the provided link and updated the contact information and credit card information from their Mastercard. Because it is relatively simple to make a website look like a legitimate organizations site by copying the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were actually being contacted by Mastercard and were subsequently going to Mastercard’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the email being read by a percentage of people who actually had a Mastercard.

Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on “fishing,” the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.