Within the last several months, the FBI has seen a significant increase in fraud involving the exploitation of valid online banking credentials belonging to small and medium businesses, municipal governments, and school districts. In a typical scenario, the targeted entity receives a "spear phishing" email which either contains an infected attachment, or directs the recipient to an infected web site. Once the recipient opens the attachment or visits the web site, malware is installed on their computer. The malware contains a key logger which will harvest the recipients business or corporate bank account log-in information. Shortly thereafter, the perpetrator either creates another user account with the stolen log-in information, or directly initiates funds transfers by masquerading as the legitimate user. These transfers have occurred as both traditional wire transfers and as ACH transfers.

Further reporting has shown that the transfers are directed to the bank accounts of willing or unwitting individuals within the United States. Most of these individuals have been recruited via work-at-home advertisements, or have been contacted after placing resumes on well-known job search web sites. These persons are often hired to "process payments", or "transfer funds". They are told they will receive wire transfers into their bank accounts. Shortly after funds are received, they are directed to immediately forward most of the money overseas via wire transfer services such as Western Union and Moneygram.

Customers who use online banking services are advised to contact their financial institution to ensure they are employing all the appropriate security and fraud prevention services their institution offers.

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team ( US-CERT ) has made information on banking securely online available at http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/Banking_Securely_Online07102006.pdf .

Protecting your computer against malicious software is an ongoing activity and, at minimum, all computer systems need to be regularly patched, have up to date anti-virus software, and a personal firewall installed. Further information is available at http://www.us-cert.gov/nav/nt01/ .

If you have experienced unauthorized funds transfers from your bank accounts, or if you have been recruited via a work-at-home opportunity to receive transfers and forward money overseas, please notify the IC3 by filing a complaint at www.IC3.gov .

NOTICE TO ONLINE WIRE CUSTOMERS
NOTIFY YOUR ACCOUNT OFFICER IF WIRE CONFIRMATIONS ARE NOT RECEIVED BY EMAIL FROM THE BANK WITHIN 1.5 HRS AFTER SENDING A WIRE.  ALSO, CONTACT THE BANK IMMEDIATELY IF YOU RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION FOR A WIRE TRANSMITTED IN ERROR.

Usage of Business Internet Banking assumes understanding of and adherence to the following:

• User IDs should never be shared.  The ADMIN user of an organization is able to establish sub-users, and entitle unique access for each User to necessary account(s) and enable functions such as access to ACH or Wires - as needed.  Under no circumstance should User IDs be shared. 

• In order to maintain a safe and secure computing environment, make sure your PCs have the most current anti-virus software. Anti-virus software should be updated as frequently as new virus data is made available by the software vendor.  Also, make sure a firewall is in place to help prevent unauthorized access to your PC.

• To effectively manage and secure your Business Internet Banking processes, set up and configure the appropriate available BIB Alerts, found under the ADMINISTRATION tab in BIB.

IMPORTANT: State and federal statutes make it a crime to gain unauthorized access into this internet banking system. Violators will be prosecuted. The system is for authorized use only by internet banking customers of First National Bank of Central Florida.

• We highly recommend the use of the latest commercially accepted browser versions offered by Microsoft® and Firefox®.
• Support of a new release for Browsers will begin 90 days from the date of commercial availability.
• Non-support of a Browser is based on the lifecycle prescribed by the Browser vendor. Exception to this rule is based on security issues deemed unacceptable by the Financial Industry.
• This information does not imply that other browsers will not work with BIB. However, they are not tested with the addition of each new release and defects associated with unsupported browsers may not be corrected.

Member FDIC

Random individuals and/or companies may have received a falsified e-mail with the subject title “Rejected ACH Transaction.”  This e-mail appears to be from NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association telling them that there is a problem with an ACH transaction they have originated.  The e-mail includes a link which redirects the individual to a fake web page which appears like the NACHA website and contains a link which is almost certainly executable virus with malware.  See sample below.

Please alert any financial institution and/or company who have questions about this site and inform them that the e-mail did not originate from NACHA, the website is not that of NACHA's, and inform them to not click on the link.

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From: nacha.org [mailto:report@nacha.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:25 AM
To: Doe, John
Subject: Rejected ACH transaction, please review the transaction report

Dear bank account holder,

The ACH transaction, recently initiated from your bank account, was rejected by the Electronic Payments Association. Please review the transaction report by clicking the link below:

Unauthorized ACH Transaction Report  (this is the how the link is presented)

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Copyright ©2009 by NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association

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