Raiffeisen Bank Romania Warns Clients Against Phishing Attacks

Romania's Raiffeisen Bank warned its clients not to answer requests received through e-mail or SMS regarding personal data or confidential information, such as passwords or PINs, as the bank will never send out such messages.

The messages are written so as to appear legitimate statements from the bank, asking the victim for personal information related to his/her account or redirecting them to a phony website posing as the bank's official site. Raiffeisen calls on its clients to take the necessary measures to attempt to close down such sites and limit the damage.

Raiffeisen manager Radu Topliceanu said complaints are received both from bank clients and clients of other banks. He stated the e-mail addresses used by the perpetrators of such attacks, called 'phishing', are not obtained from information held by the bank.

Last year, Raiffeisen Bank was the bank targeted by most phishing attacks in Romania, with 60%, followed by BCR (13%), BRD (10%), Piraeus Bank (8.5%) and Banca Transilvania (8.5%), according to computer security company BitDefender.

Mediafax