The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) has warned the public against spam emails riding on the agency’s name to extract personal or financial details.
BOC, in a statement, said customs brokers, traders and other agencies have reported being subjected to “spamming or phishing” attacks relating to the bureau. It said these email messages contain instructions to recipients to click on a link, which will lead to an illegitimate website.
BOC explained that a phishing or spam email is created to look like communication from a trustworthy source to trick readers to click on a malicious link. Phishing websites often diligently copy the appearance of a legitimate website, including its logo, making them appear genuine. Furthermore, more sophisticated emails install or execute hidden codes into the receiver’s computer once the email is opened.
BOC said phishing is a form of identity theft in which fraudsters dupe users into sending personal information to illegitimate websites. Phishing scams are usually in the form of spam emails or pop-ups and are often difficult to detect. Once personal information is obtained, fraudsters can use it for all types of identity theft, putting the owner’s reputation at risk.
BOC denied sending such kinds of email to stakeholders, adding it does not condone fraud and will never take part in such malicious activities.
The bureau advised stakeholders to conduct orientation for IT and non-IT employees to recognize phishing attacks and their risks, and know how to address these.
BOC also urges the public to be particularly cautious with emails that come from unrecognizable, unknown, or unreliable sources, and to look for a lock icon or an “https:” on a site’s address rather than just an “http:” for added security.
Stakeholders and the general public should also be wary of generic, non-personalized emails having addresses like “GlobalTelecoms, glb@yahoo.com.” Official e-mail addresses of employees at private companies or government agencies normally carry the name of the company, like boc.cares@customs.gov.ph.
Moreover, BOC advises everyone to refrain from responding to emails urging immediate action to a request for personal or financial information, or asking to confirm such information over the Internet, as well as answering emails urging the recipient to act quickly on an alarming information.
To ensure that the email is legitimate, the bureau recommends the following steps: call the sender and verify; maintain up-to-date security patches for office systems; deploy an updated firewall, spam filter, anti-virus solution, and anti-spyware software; and encrypt all sensitive information of the company or organization.
Just recently, the agency warned against unscrupulous personalities pretending to be employees out to swindle the transacting public. Last year, BOC also said certain unscrupulous individuals may have been using the name of the customs commissioner to extort money or to promise favors in exchange for money.
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