Bulgarian Police Warn of Spam/Phishing E-mail Attack

Bulgaria’s Directorate for Combatting Organised Crime warns of a spam attack and advises users not to provide personal and other data requested which appear to be sent by a financial institution via e-mail, the press office of the Ministry of Interior announced on 29^th of March.

Since March 20, there has been an intense spam attack in which hundreds of thousands of e-mails have been sent to users of Bulgarian mail vendors on a general principle, the interior ministry said.

The phishing e-mails are identical in content and claim to be distributed on behalf of various banking institutions operating on the territory of the country.

The message includes a link that invites recipients to enter their authorisation credentials from e-banking accounts (usernames and passwords) or financial payment instruments (debit / credit card data) on the pretext that preventive action is being taken on behalf of financial institutions.

The police warns that people should be aware that fraudulent e-mails were distributed and calls for the necessary attention in receiving false unsolicited commercial communications. It notes that all financial institutions operating in Bulgaria have no practice to require such a type of data in the manner described above.

The directorate for combatting organized crime has made arrangements with big email providers to filter out fraudulent spam messages.