Agents’ Mutual and potentially thousands of agents were the subject of phishing attempts yesterday. The problem has now been fixed.
The business had to suspend all access to agents’ MyAM system in the afternoon.
It followed up with emails explaining there had been a phishing attack – an attempt to extract usernames and passwords.
The attack has not affected the OnTheMarket website.
CEO Ian Springett said in the email to agents: “You may by now be aware that we have suspended all access to the MyAM system this afternoon.
“The reason is that we and you have been the subject of a “phishing’ attack. The attack works as follows:
“The attacker creates fake My Agents” Mutual login page.
“They send member agents a fake email lead pretending that it has come us.
“The fake email has a link to the fake My Agents” Mutual login page.
“The member agents enter their login details, thereby giving the attacker access to their My Agents’ Mutual account.”
The email warns member agents to ensure they see the correct address in their browser’s address bar, to avoid being the victim of a phishing scheme.
The email also attached a screen shot of the fake log-in page, which looks very much the real website.
Springett warned: “Please be vigilant.”
A spokesman for OnTheMarket.com said: “The attempt did not affect the OnTheMarket.com website, nor any of our internal systems.
“We take our members’ security extremely seriously and are working hard to conclude our investigations.”
Comments (8)
Me too, had a call about survey. Would not answer my questions of which company he worked for, who the survey was for and how info would be used, so I declined to do the survey. Do take Fluter’s point, but with a market research company not prepared to give their name, how would I know any answers I gave would be correctly recorded and used? Number came up on caller display so checked later and its company called Storelink. Thanks for the tip Penguin.
I, too have had one of these ‘Market Research phone calls’.
The quickest way to get a spoof caller off the line is to ask for their ‘Market Research Society Number’.
The ‘phone will be put down faster than a rat down a drainpipe….
Re the Phishing issue. Download Rapport by Trusteer to protect against such attacks. You might well have come across a link when accessing online banking as the banks are encouraging users to use the software.
Fair play fluter…… personally I want to know who I am talking too? ……the fact that George couldn’t tell me…. smells funny? ……so, I’ll pass.
Does it really matter who you are talking to GPL, if a positive message is conveyed by all they speak to, what conclusions are their paymasters going to draw???. Much better than saying nothing in my humble opinion. It’s not as though anyone is going to give away their banking passwords or anything.
I had a similar one last week and the person couldn’t tell me who he worked for and who the survey was on behalf of. His questions were: 1) What appealed to you about OTM. 2) Are you happy with OTM. 3) What did I think of the “one other portal rule”. My answers were: 1) Its the best chance to wrestle back some control from the other portals. 2) Very happy with the number and quality of leads. 3) Like everyone else, if I wasn’t happy with it I wouldn’t of signed up. I never gave my name or any other details and the reason I answered is that I felt it were better to give a positive message than a no comment or a refusal. Perhaps that is something worth considering?
I had that same phone call and he posed clever questions to try and get my email address for AM to send me updates, when I refused and said as an AM client they already have my contact details why would I want to give it out to a stranger over the phone he backed off and ended the call!!
Interesting that from a different perspective I received a phone call from George? ….. who is one of a team doing a survey/market research on members of OnTheMarket.com?
He had only 4 Quick Questions to ask?….. I asked just 2 …..who are you conducting the survey on behalf of? ….. George suddenly went quiet? …..then I asked was he phoning of behalf of OTM….. NO, he answered.
Goodbye George, I said.
Funny old world isn’t it….. anonymous survey on a company that is deemed by The Duopoly as No threat?