Alliance Finance Bank Plc will never send a private individual unsolicited correspondence, asking a private individual to make payments or provide personal details.
We are aware that scams are being operated by fraudsters pretending to represent Alliance Finance Bank (formerly FIBI Bank (UK) plc/Tungsten Bank) or customers of the bank. The fraudster target typically receives communications requesting the payment of fees for one or more services and the techniques may include:
- Attempting to forge bank email addresses and stationery, and using the names of present and former employees of the bank; or
- Describing a transaction or service and fees are requested to be paid to facilitate the transfer or service. Examples of this type of Advance Fee Fraud are:
a.“The beneficiary of an account at the bank wants to transfer an account or funds to the target and administration fees are required to be paid before release of the funds”; or
b. The target is “offered account facilities or savings accounts and fees are required to be paid to the bank in order to facilitate the opening of the account.”
If you are not an existing customer of Alliance Finance Bank, you should ignore any unsolicited correspondence from any party purporting to represent Tungsten Bank, FIBI Bank (UK) or a customer of any of these banks.
If you have received any correspondence from any party purporting to represent Tungsten Bank or FIBI Bank (UK) or a customer of either bank and in particular if you have been told that funds in an account are to be transferred to you:
- Do NOT make any payments.
- Do NOT provide any personal details.
- Do NOT reply to the correspondence.
Online Banking Security
- Never disclose passwords or other personal information in response to an email, phone call or letter purporting to be from your bank or other financial institution. Banks will never send you emails asking you to divulge such information. Any communication from banks will use your actual name (not ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’) and possibly another verification of authenticity such as your postcode or part of your account number. If you are unsure if an email is genuine, contact your bank via other means.
- Always make sure you are using a secure internet connection to connect to your bank. Never use free public Wi-Fi - however convenient - as this may not be secure and your online banking could be eavesdropped on
- Look for ‘https’ at the beginning of the address and the padlock symbol in the browser
- Use strong passwords and PINs.
- Ensure you have effective and updated antivirus/antispyware software and firewall running before you log in to your bank account.
- Do not reveal your passwords or PINs to anybody else or write them down to remember them.
- Always check your statements, and if you notice any unusual transactions, report them immediately.
- Always be aware of opening emails and attachments from sources that you are unsure about or look to good to be true
- Be wary of any unexpected or suspicious looking ‘pop-up’ windows that appear during your online banking session.
Two- and Multi- Factor Authentication
Many banks use two factor authentication to obtain stronger evidence of who you are than simply using passwords. Two factors are ‘something you know’ (typically your user name and password) and ‘something you have’ which is either your bank card with a card reader. The code generated is personal to you, and different each time you log in.
Common Types of Phishing Scams
The term ‘Phishing’ relates to an action where fraudsters send you electronic emails or texts which look like they come from an official source, often from a payment institution (banks, PayPal etc.), asking for personal and security information. They are looking for you to divulge enough information for them to use to either take payments directly from your accounts or use information you give them to pay for items online.
Malware-Based Phishing
Refers to scams that involve running malicious software on users' PCs. Malware can be introduced as an email attachment, as a downloadable file from a web site, or by exploiting known security vulnerabilities--a particular issue for small and medium businesses (SMBs) who are not always able to keep their software applications up to date
Spear Phishing
In this type of attack, individuals or companies are being targeted. Gathering personal information about the victims from various mediums such as social media websites, attackers pose themselves as someone you are familiar with. This makes the victim less vigilant and takes action without giving much consideration.
Clone Phishing
This type of phishing attacks happens when a legitimate and previously delivered email is taken and used to create an identical email with malicious content. The email appears to come from the original sender and claims to be a resend or updated version to the original email.
Online safety – how to protect yourself and family
For your personal online security we refer you to the guidance provided by Get Online Safe:
https://www.getsafeonline.org/
Emails
Emails are an insecure method of transferring information across the Internet. You should limit the information you send by email and not detail any confidential personal data in your emails to us.
Keep your information safe
We recommend the following:
- Always keep your personal data protected.
- Lock your PC when you are not using it.
- For optimum security you should use the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.
- Update your PC with the latest security patches
