Important your Barclays IBank account information. - Email Scam
9th January 2004

This Barclays iBank email is a very convincing scam ...

This scam takes the form of a text email with a link (see image below), but the link is cloaked and coded to exploit the known bug in Internet Explorer browsers.

This bug allows the URL (site address shown in the browser address bar) to be spoofed, which means that if you have Internet Explorer, it will show http://ibank. barclays.co.uk but the true URL is http:// www.newyersm. com:80/...

This bug has been increasingly exploited by email scammers of late, and we eagerly await a patch from Microsoft. The vulnerability can also allow a fake URL to be shown in the status bar of Microsoft Outlook and browser products (while holding the cursor over the cloaked link). We have set up a Browser Test cloaked link which you can use to see if your browser is vulnerable. You can also check links in emails or web pages for cloaking using our Link Checker, and you can check for URL spoofing while at a web page using our URL Checker.

The most worrying part about this scam is that the vast majority of reports have come from those who do not have a Barclays iBank account. And given the recent MailFrontier claim that 40% of recipients fell for the recent Citibank scam which was similarly convincing, we hope that awareness will build quickly about this spoofing problem.

It is clear, from the reports that we have received about this and other Bank Scams, that these emails are not just being sent to Barclays customers alone. It may well be that these scammers are utilising mailing lists. We urge all our site users to use one specific email address for mailing lists and a separate one for use with online accounts only.

The forged Barclays iBank page that the email linked to was closed when we received the first reports. We expect that this would have been a forged Barclays page with a form to enter your account information in accordance with the requirements of the email text. It may well have been exactly the same pages as in the previous Barclays Bank Scam.

If you have received this hoax email, please remember that it is very common for these email scams to be redistributed at a later date with only slightly different content or the same but with the fake page(s) hosted by a different provider. Also, once you have received one of these hoaxes, it is also common place to receive at least another one and usually a day or two after the first, although not necessarily from the same apparent sender.

Take a good look at the following image, because this email scam may be coming to an inbox near you!

The Email ...