22 Jan 2009

Phishing victim to fight back

An MP who was the victim of an attempted phishing scam is to take action against the problem.

Conservative backbencher Nigel Evans has received 40 emails this year, each attempting to obtain his personal data and has launched an attack on the culprits.

Mr Evans is chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on identity fraud and has spoken of people affected by the problem.

"It recently came to our attention that one gentleman has lost over £100,000 by paying money to somebody that he did not know but who was supposedly ill in Africa and they were not," he said.

The MP hopes to "build up a picture" of the nature of the scams and is very concerned about the "growing success" of the illegal operations.

News of the plan comes after recent reports of a new type of "in-session" attack which appears as a pop-up window even during secure website sessions.