ANZ is the latest Australian bank to fall foul of a fraudulent e-mail scam that attempts to trick customers into updating their accounts at a bogus Web site.
In a statement, ANZ says it has identified the scam site and is working with the Australian Federal Police to have the US-hosted Web pages shut down.
The bank says a spam e-mail is advising customers to access accounts by clicking on a URL which looks like it connects to ANZ, but the IP address given is a series of numbers that leads to the bogus site.
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the e-mail is advising customers to 'reactivate accounts due to a technical update'. The article says the page has been copied from the ANZ site and a script, written in the PHP scripting language, transfers customer details.
The incident follows two other recent high profile scams involving Australian banks: Westpac said last week it was working with authorities to close down an imitation site of its own online banking service; and police have charged a man following an e-mail fraud which duped some Commonwealth Bank NetBank customers into inputting their passwords and PIN numbers at a fake site.
In the latter case, bus driver Andrei Aladuskin, 25, of Surry Hills, has been charged with 12 accounts of obtaining money by deception and acting as an accessory. He is alleged to have transferred $27,840 to his own Commonwealth Bank account after sending out spam e-mails offering a 'seucrity upgrade' to NetBank customers.
Aladuskin has been released on conditional bail and the hearing is set for 22 May.