Latvia's Hansabanka is warning customers not to divulge Internet banking log-in details via e-mail following the circulation of a spam scam inviting Hanza.net users to update their accounts.
The bank says that it never uses e-mail for exchange of confidential information with customers. It urges any clients to have been duped by the bogus mail to contact the bank immediately and to go to their nearest branch to change their account log-in.
Hansabanka's Internet bank is the most popular in Latvia with over 200,000 subscribers.
The scam is the latest in a series of similar frauds to sweep the global banking community.
In Australia, the Securities and Investments Commission has warned that fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated in their methods for extracting personal information from consumers such as bank account details. The Asic points to the creation of bogus Web sites displaying false security symbols such as the padlock sign, and the growing use of key-logging software at Internet cafes and trojan horses to capture passwords and other codes.