THE matter of rampant scams involving money transfers from bank accounts with just a click of a button needs to be addressed seriously.

Account holders receive emails purportedly from banks asking them to update and verify their account status. The emails look authentic, especially when the web page of the bank is displayed and unsuspecting victims divulge information about their accounts.

The scam goes undetected until one carries out a banking transaction and finds the coffers emptied.

In a recent news report, an information technology expert advised people to be cautious about giving their bank account details and passwords to their Internet bank accounts as cyber criminals trick people into giving out such information. He claimed that the cyber thieves had a method to crack into the system.

He called it “DNS poisoning”. Isn’t there an antidote for this?

Banks are aware of this and so is the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). The question arises as to why nothing can be done to arrest and put a stop to these scams.

Victims are normally advised to lodge reports with the police and their respective banks if they have been cheated. To date, many reported cases have not been solved.

The victims are unable to seek redress as they are usually blamed for giving out the information.

One has to realise that they gave information merely because the website looked similar to the bank’s web page. It takes an expert to tell the difference between real and fake websites.

Banks protect themselves by saying that they have informed the people through public announcements and notices included in bank statements.

Again the question arises as to how many customers are they able to reach through these public announcements and bank statements. One has to realise that bank statements are only sent to current account holders and not to savings account holders.

The right thing for banks to do is to send a letter to each and every account holder informing them of possible scams.

The MCMC should be taken to task for not being able to crack down on this as it is its sole responsibility to ensure that the Internet is secure at all times.

Bank Negara, on the other hand, should conduct a thorough investigation and audit of all cyber theft cases and make public the number of cases and the names of the banks involved and create a scheme to compensate innocent victims.

R.I. UMA, George Town

Source: NST – October 10, 2008