Commonwealth Bank served as training ground for global phishing attacks
When international organised crime groups launched the first wide-scale phishing attacks in 2003, their targets weren’t the United States or the United Kingdom but actually the customers of one of Australia's major banks, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, according to a cyber crime researcher.
The claim was made in a revealing presentation at the recent International Serious and Organised Crime Conference in Melbourne, where Macquarie University lecturer, Stephen McCombie, explained how stolen money is laundered overseas and some possible solutions.
McCombie works at the university’s recently established centre for policing, intelligence and counter terrorism and has completed research into the history of the internet phishing scams, which are used by criminals to steal banking details of victims. Data shows the first major phishing attacks took place in March 2003, he said, and the world's first major internet banking service to be used in an attack was the Commonwealth Bank, targeting its Netbank customers.