Coast Capital Savings issued a fraud alert to its members after a scam website duped members.
In an email alert issued earlier this month, Coast Capital warned members of the spoofing – where fraudsters replicate the real website with a fake in hopes of gaining members’ account information.
A member who had their account compromised alerted Black Press Media to the fraud in hopes of helping prevent others from falling victim to scammers as March is Fraud Awareness Month.
Coast Capital advised members to not use Google or other search engines to locate Coast Capital’s website as using the credit union’s app or typing its verified URL directly into the browser are more secure ways to access online banking.
“It is important to note that this isn’t something that is specific to Coast Capital but rather something that impacts all organizations with e-commerce functions and (is) something that consumers need to remain vigilant against wherever they are sharing/inputting their personal and financial information,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The most important thing people need to know is that fraud is an issue that is omnipresent and continuing to get more and more sophisticated. Everyone needs to be careful and vigilant always.”
The Coast Capital spokesperson confirmed the credit union has been seeing spoofing attempts recently but noted, as it’s a form of cyber-fraud, it isn’t targetting members at a particular branch and impacted accounts were not widespread across the membership.
Coast Capital has developed a guide with more information about spoofing, signs of fraud and additional ways to keep banking information safe. To learn more, go to bit.ly/3T5hRFO.
For more tips from the Canadian Bankers Association, go to cba.ca/cyber-security-toolkit.
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