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eBay ‘Please Confirm Your Identity’ Phishing Scam

Outline

Email, purporting to be from eBay, claims that you have tried to sign in from an unfamiliar computer and must, therefore, confirm your identity by clicking a link in the message.  




Brief Analysis

The email is not from eBay. The message is designed to trick eBay users into divulging their account login details to Internet criminals. The criminals have used a standard security protocol sometimes used by eBay as a means of making their false claims seem more legitimate.

Example

Subject: Please confirm your identity

eBay – Please confirm your identity

Dear eBay Community Member

You’re signing in from a computer we’re not familiar with. That’s no problem, but we need to take a few moments just to make sure no one is trying to access your account without permission. Please log in to your account and complete the form on the next page.
[Link to bogus website removed]

Regards
eBay

 

Detailed Analysis

This email, which purports to be from eBay, claims that the recipient has attempted to log in to his or her eBay account from a computer that eBay is not familiar with. Supposedly, eBay needs to confirm the user’s identity to ensure that the account is not being accessed without the user’s permission.

To confirm his or her identity, the user is instructed to log in to the eBay account by clicking a ink in the email.  



However, the message is not from eBay and the link in the email does not lead to an eBay identity confirmation page as expected.

In fact, the link opens a bogus webpage designed to closely resemble a genuine eBay login page. When the victim has entered his or her username and password on the fake page, a new page will appear that asks for the answer to the security question attached to the account as well as the user’s email address.

After supplying this information, the victim will see a final message noting that he or she has successfully confirmed his or her identity. The victim will then be redirected to the genuine eBay website.

The login credentials and other information submitted on the fake website can be collected by the criminals operating the scam and subsequently used to hijack the account. Once they have gained access to the compromised account, the criminals can lock out the real user by changing the account password, steal personal and financial information from the account and use it to conduct further fraudulent activities in the victim’s name.

The link in the email  uses HTML  to make it appear that it points to a genuine eBay web address. Moreover, to further the illusion of legitimacy, the scammers have copied the text of a standard security protocol message that is sometimes sent by eBay to help protect user accounts.

Because it conducts its business online, eBay and sister company  Paypal  are  continually targeted  by online scammers. New  phishing scam variations  that  target eBay  users are regularly distributed. Be wary of any eBay message that asks you to click a link or open an attachment and supply personal or financial information.

eBay has  published information  telling users how to avoid becoming a victim of such phishing scams.









Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/ebay-please-confirm-your-identity-phishing-scam/