Scammers are targeting Telstra customers and attempting to obtain their usernames and passwords by using an email that claims the company was unable to process the customer's last bill.
The email is sent in the name of Gerd Schenkel, the executive director of Telstra Digital, to make it look authentic.
It has the subject line "Unable to process your last bill" and offers customers links to pay their bills on what the scammers claim is the company website.
"Our billing system was unable to process your last payment. Please verify & submit your correct billing information to avoid interruption of your BigPond Services. You can pay your bill simply and quickly online by visiting telstra.com/paybill using your credit or debit card," the email says.
{loadposition sam08}However, anyone who allows a cursor to hover above the links either in the email or on the bogus webpage to which it links will know it is a scam because none of the links point to the Telstra site.
A screenshot of the bogus Telstra login page.
The domain name which has been used in the links that take one to the bogus Web page is very similar to the name of a flooring supplier in the UK and, in fact, redirects to Web pages that are hosted on the supplier's site.
The supplier's website runs on Linux and uses the nginx web server, according to the security company Netcraft.
Netcraft also detects that the site uses the Magento eCommerce application and this could well have been the entry point for the scammers.
A vulnerability in this application were discovered last year.
The domain registration details for the two domains differ in one crucial aspect: the one used to provide the bogus web links has no address for the registrant.
Telstra has been contacted for comment.