UK police have arrested six people in connection with a phishing scam that plundered over £1 million from student bank accounts.
The Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) was alerted to the scam in August 2011, and discovered that a criminal network were sending out emails inviting unsuspecting students to update details on their student loan account via a link to a convincing but bogus website.
The ring was busted late on Thursday with a series of co-ordinated swoops on premises in London, Manchester and Bolton.
The suspects, four men and two women, have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and Computer Misuse Act and money laundering offences.
Organised phishing networks are becoming more sophisticated in their efforts to dupe and defraud computer users. In the US, the FBI has warned of a gang using the Zeus keylogging Trojan to steal passwords for business banking users. While the criminals loot their accounts, the victims are simultaneously zapped with a Distributed Denial of Service attack that keeps them offline until the funds have been transferred.