Since the time of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Internet's turning into a haven for opportunists waiting to cash in on any disaster or natural calamity. With China still recuperating from the devastating Sichuan earthquake that claimed countless lives and inflicted untold damage across the country, it's now time for some unscrupulous cyber criminals to make their moneys out of someone else's misery.
These fraudsters are siphoning off relief money pouring in from all parts of the world, and how? They've created a phishing Web site posing as a representative of none other than the Red Cross -- complete with six fraudulent accounts at four different banks - for donors to wire-in their donations. International cyber security engine Websense deems the phishing Web site was hosted within China itself, and has been down ever since an alert was issued.
Typically, phishing attacks are all about getting personal details such as passwords and credit card accounts of victims. In this case though, it's too premature to determine for how long the scam has been going on, and how much money has been transferred to the fraudulent accounts.
All said, this isn't the only such case of fraud in China in the wake of the earthquake. Just after disaster struck the Chinese, a flurry of SMSes requesting assistance and moneys to be deposited in private accounts hit mobile phones across the country. One such fake SMS read: "My family was in the earthquake. Dad and mum urgently need money. Send whatever money you can. Deposit it in our friend's account."
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