Volksbank customers targeted by cybercriminals: be careful with these emails

Created: 07/06/2022 13:19

The Volksbank logo on a building: Cyber ​​criminals are currently targeting Volksbank customers.

But there are ways to protect yourself (symbol image).

© picture alliance/dpa |

Marijan Murat

Cyber ​​criminals are currently targeting Volksbank customers in professional fraudulent emails with the subject “Your action is required”.

But they can protect themselves.

Berlin - Cyber ​​criminals are currently targeting around 30 million customers of Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken in Germany.

It's about savings in the billions.

The phishing e-mails are professionally designed, and the consumer advice center issued a warning on Monday.

Attempted scams by cybercriminals: How to identify the fake emails

The subject of the e-mail, which indicates an urgency, should already make Volksbank customers suspicious: “Your action is required,” according to the phishing e-mails currently being sent by cybercriminals to Volksbank and Raiffeisen customers.

The criminals want to trick consumers into logging into their online banking using the link in the email.

Because then the fraudsters could tap the login data, log in themselves and cause financial damage to the customers.

The current fraudulent emails are professionally designed, do not contain any spelling mistakes, but do contain the official logo of the Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken.

Anyone who suspects that they have clicked on something or otherwise given data to the scammers should contact their bank immediately.

Again and again, criminals are successful in their phishing attacks on bank customers, as a case from Germering shows.

Beware of phishing attacks: That's what the consumer advice center advises

The advice of the consumer advice center is: Ideally, do not open the suspicious e-mail and immediately move it to the spam folder without reply.

Anyone who has already opened the electronic letter should under no circumstances click on the buttons contained in the mail or open attachments.

This does not only affect Volksbank and Raiffeisen customers, because there are plenty of phishing e-mails that look genuine with the logo of other banks.

In general, credit institutions never email their customers with an urgent call to action or instruct them to log into their bank account via a link.

Phishing methods are not only common in bank emails, fraudsters also send legitimate-looking attacks from PayPal or DHL.

Criminals also use this fraud method on a large scale in the WhatsApp news service or in the social network Facebook.

The online portal of the cybersecurity company PIXM reports that 2.7 million Facebook users visited a phishing site in the past year alone, around 8.5 million in 2022. The attackers use compromised Facebook accounts to Distributing phishing sites via Facebook Messenger.