Banking Law

According to Ben Worthen at The Wall Street Journal's Business Technology Blog, the recent surge in bank mergers has been accompanied by a commensurate surge in "phishing" attacks by cybercrooks.

If you want to see one way the mess on Wall Street is affecting Main Street, just check your inbox: Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the financial crisis by sending so-called phishing emails that pretend to be from banks that have recently been acquired.

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In the wake of the shotgun marriages now taking place, banks have neglected to tell customers about what changes will be made to their online-banking setups. Cyber criminals are trying to fill that void, Andy Klein, a product manager at tech-security company SonicWALL, tells the Business Technology Blog. One such email tells customers of Chase and Washington Mutual banks that because of the merger, customers new and old need to go the Chase Web site and update their information. The email contains a link to a site that looks like Chase.com, but is really operated by a hacker.

Yeah, it's all the fault of the banks. When Wamu disappears into Chase's welcoming embrace in the blink of an eye (you'll recall that Wamu's demise was hastily arranged on a Thursday, rather than on the customary late Friday afternoon, because of the fear of a run), Chase's first thought is supposed to be to send an e-mail to Wamu's on-line banking customers alerting them to the new on-line banking set-up. The only problem with that plan is that Chase probably hasn't worked that all out yet because the mechanics of the transition are still being resolved. Speed kills many things, but apparently not "phishing."

Moreover, it's not as though phishing attacks are something new. How many newspaper articles have to be written about this topic before the average bank customer realizes not to respond to one of these e-mails? As Worthen explains, "[m]ost banks rarely contact customers via email. If they do, they won???t send emails asking customers to click on a link and confirm their personal information ??? the hallmark of a phishing scam." At some point, customers have to take responsibility for their own gullibility. Or is that being unreasonable?

A side note: The only comments to Worthen's post are by two commenters who are promoting their businesses, and slant their comments accordingly (and include links to their web sites). Shameless shilling in comboxes is one more reason to consign them to the black hole of cyberspace.