By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Kim Jee-yeon, a 27-year-old office worker in Seoul, received an e-mail recently from KB Card that said the issuer would offer a gift to loyal users like Kim.
Kim opened up the e-mail and clicked on an embedded link to get the present. She was directed to an Internet site that advertises free programs on English conversation.
The site asked Kim to give her personal identification data such as citizenship number, name, e-mail address and phone number in order to receive the freebie.
``The Web site was full of KB Card logos and I believed that it had something to do with the card issuer. Hence, I gave up my personal details,'' Kim said.
``But it did not give back the English-language programs. I realized that I had been cheated and I am concerned that my data might end up in the wrong hands,'' she said.
Kim is just one outstanding victim among numerous people who were duped into providing their identity data to the fraudsters, dubbed phishers who pretended to be KB Card officials.
According to KB Card, they sent similar e-mails three times this month to a number of recipients and the police stepped in to shut down the linked Web site in question.
Coined in the 1990s, phishing refers to the stealing of sensitive data by pretending to be someone trustworthy ― this time KB Card.
Phishers reel in unsuspecting victims by sending out e-mails that pose as messages from financial institutions, asking the recipients to click the linked site.
Those who click on the links in the spoofed e-mails are actually redirected to fake sites, where they enter information directly into the fraudster's hands.
``Typically, phishers threaten to close the recipients' accounts if they do not access the links. They then ask for details such as account numbers or passwords,'' a KB Card spokesman said.
``The latest phishers are different as they did not ask for financial data. However, they are the same bad guys in that they tried to steal identification information,'' he said.
KB Card said that there had been no financial losses associated with the phishing scam yet, but experts point out that the identity theft itself is dangerous.
``Think that bad guys know your citizenship number, name and cell phone number. They can misuse the data in various ways or sell them to other bad guys,'' said an official from an online security company.
``Maybe he can trace you in an extreme cases. That is the scary side of identity theft. In modern days, stolen identification data itself can pose a big threat to citizens.''
KB Card said any e-mail that requires personal details is fake. It asked its 8 million customers not to open any suspicious e-mail.