Source: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/how-banks-fight-hackers-and-fraudsters-20120404-1wc0h.html
Even the most cautious amongst us would probably have been tricked if the target of such a sting…
“Just got done for $1000. We import goods from China / Hong Kong and have been doing so for 10 years. The Scamers hacked the email account of the company in HK and waited until we agreed to the deal. What they did then was very tricky, with 20mins of our acceptance of the deal, they copied the whole email (including all history) and emailed us under a new email that was the same as the companies email with one character changed. We then paid the money, it was three days later when i called the real company to confirm the IMT had cleared, that the problem came about. a quick ISDN search showed the email came from Nigeria, but the money paid to an account in China in the same city as the factory. What got us was how long had they been watching the emails, it only took them 20mins from the time i agreed to payment to the scamers sending the fake china bank account details (quicker then the real company replied). We are still waiting to hear back from Com Bank and Bank of China, but from the looks of it the money is gone either to the scamers or to the China Government under their anti-money lanundry act”
Here is an example of how easy it can be to fool somebody by fiddling with letters, numbers and fonts. I am going to place a capital i next to a lower case L – can you tell the difference? To fool you, all I have to do is change the font from Verdana I l to Arial I l