Stated CMVM's supervisor, the institution issued an alert regarding a fake e-mail doing the rounds while purporting to be from Portuguese banks as well as confirming that financial transactions had been completed in its name. Economico published this in news on February 22, 2011.

The institution issued a statement in which it has been warned that the above e-mails are bogus that lure users to follow a web-link designed to plant malware on their PCs so third parties could gain access to those PCs' contents. Negocios published this in news on February 22, 2011.

Lately, a phishing assault similar to the above, struck FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) during February 2011. In that, people got an e-mail having an attachment containing a strange .zip type file that claimed to be from FDIC. But, the file, in reality thrust a Trojan installer via deceiving the user and getting him to load it so the malware could create a backdoor for allowing the entry of other malicious programs.

Said the security specialists, it was a fact that phishing assaults in the past aimed at specific credit unions and banks. However, in the present time, these assaults instead of attacking merely Wells Fargo, Bank of America, alternatively any other bank attacked anybody who held an account with a bank, they added.

Hence, according to CMVM, recipients of the above e-mails must not follow any given web-link. Indeed, prior to viewing the messages, users must verify their genuineness by contacting the financial institution referred to inside the e-mails.

Besides, end-users require knowing that the CMVM or any of the Portuguese banks won't ever dispatch an e-mail written badly alternatively instruct recipients for following an unfamiliar web-link. CMVM cautions that users must first verify the genuineness of the links before clicking on them or straight away call the institution if they think the e-mails may be authorized, published Economico in news on February 22, 2011.