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Help me figure out this phishing attempt

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
I like picking apart phishing emails to see how obvious (or not) the attempt is. This one has me stumped. The headers look legit. The domain in the link is not owned by Citibank according to internic.net's whois (it was just registered a couple days ago) but if you go to www.citibank-us.org it redirects to citibank.com. Yet I know this is a phishing attempt from the poorly worded email.

Could it be that Citibank has taken over the domain and forced it to redirect to them? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.

---start of headers---------------
Return-Path: <support@citibank.com>
Received: from mailexchanger2.MyISP.com (mailexchanger2.MyISP.com [208.x.x.x])
by oldmail.MyISP.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i8LCUZwa000800
for <xxxxxxx@mail.MyISP.com>; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 08:30:35 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from adsl-68-22-198-146.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net (adsl-68-22-198-146.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net [68.22.198.146])
by mailexchanger2.MyISP.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id i8LCaHK1053934
for <xxxxxxx@MyISP.com>; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 08:36:18 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from citibank.com (mail2.citigroup.com [192.193.226.98])
by adsl-68-22-198-146.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id F64947C9D0
for <xxxxxxx@MyISP.com>; Tue, 21 Sep 2004 05:29:07 -0700
Reply-To: Citibank <support@citibank.com>
From: Citibank <support@citibank.com>
To: xxxxxxx <xxxxxxx@MyISP.com>
Subject: Please confirm your account
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 05:29:07 -0700
Message-ID: <100101c49fd6$2554cdc3$e9fc469d@citibank.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0013_AC99695A.FE7D0301"
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616
Importance: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
X-Virus-Scanned: by Ameriserv.net Anti-Virus E-Gateway
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.40
X-UIDL: E9h"!8`S"!JJ`"!+W!#!
--------end headers--------------------

Relevant section of body:

<html>
<body>
<img src=3d"http://www=2ecitibank-us=2eorg/signin/citifi/scripts/login2/h=
eader=2egif">
<br><br>
<P align=3d"left"><font face=3d"Trebuchet MS">
Dear valued Citibank member,=20
<br><br>
Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the online banking commu=
nity we have issued the following warning message=2e
<br><br>
It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be co=
nfirmed due to inactive customers, fraud and spoof reports=2e If you coul=
d please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your r=
ecords you will not run into any future problems with the online service=2e=
However, failure to confirm your records may result in your account susp=
ension=2e
<br><br>
Once you have confirmed your account records your internet banking servic=
e will not be interrupted and will continue as normal=2e
<br>
&amp;nbsp;</font><P align=3d"left"><font face=3d"Trebuchet MS">Please <a href=
=3d"http://www=2ecitibank-us=2eorg/signin/citifi/scripts/login2/index=2eh=
tml" target=3d"_blank">click here</a> to confirm your bank account record=
s=2e
<br><br><br>
Thank you for your time,
<br>
Citibank Billing Department=2e<br></a></font><hr><font face=3d"Trebuchet =
MS">=20
 

CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
30,322
4
0
my question is why is Citibank the bank of choice for these phishing attempts? Why not WAMU or Bank of America?
 

sharkeeper

Lifer
Jan 13, 2001
10,886
2
0
Those come from broadband clients whose computers are infected with zombies running those daemons. Stupid ISP should close SMTP traffic on the offenders until they get their sh!t cleaned up.

I run several mailservers and 85% of the traffic is spam!

Cheers!
 

shuan24

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2003
2,558
0
0
Originally posted by: CPA
my question is why is Citibank the bank of choice for these phishing attempts? Why not WAMU or Bank of America?

Easy: Cause I dont have an account with them!
 

CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
30,322
4
0
Originally posted by: shuan24
Originally posted by: CPA
my question is why is Citibank the bank of choice for these phishing attempts? Why not WAMU or Bank of America?

Easy: Cause I dont have an account with them!

huh?
 

KingNothing

Diamond Member
Apr 6, 2002
7,141
1
0
Originally posted by: CPA
Originally posted by: shuan24
Originally posted by: CPA
my question is why is Citibank the bank of choice for these phishing attempts? Why not WAMU or Bank of America?

Easy: Cause I dont have an account with them!

huh?

I think he's saying that if you pick people at random, they're more likely to have an account with Citibank than the others.
 

arcas

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2001
2,155
2
0
If they're phishing for userids and passwords, I say, give them some. As many bogus ids and passwords as you can.

 

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
What I'm getting at is - it's clearly a phishing attempt, yet two things don't add up

1. The email appears to have actually originated from Citibank (per the headers).
2. The URL that is to be clicked on redirects directly to the genuine Citibank site.

While I'm sure the email did NOT originate from Citibank, I can't see any clue that it didn't. Also I can't see how the phisher is going to actually grab any information if the link ends up taking you directly to the genuine Citibank site.
 

SpunkyJones

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2004
5,090
1
81
The one I got did open the legit citibank website in my browser, but it also opened a seperatae popup window for the account info, which pointed to a chinese ISP.
 

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
Originally posted by: SpunkyJones
The one I got did open the legit citibank website in my browser, but it also opened a seperatae popup window for the account info, which pointed to a chinese ISP.
Ooooh...

Sneaky.
 

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
Interesting - I wonder how that could be done? I viewed the message as text (not as HTML) and I can't see how something like a hidden link to a popup could exist.

How about this scenario: The popup is trigged on machines that have already been infected with a virus of some type. The virus watches for particular URLs to be surfed to, then activates the pop up from a predetermined site.

Even if that is possible, seems like a lot of trouble to go through compared to just sending a phishing spam to the world.