SPECIAL ALERT: New Phishing Campaign Identified

Researchers from AppRiver, an email security vendor, have identified a new phishing campaign that targets merchant accounts from a payment processing vendor called First Data. First Data is an Atlanta-based provider of online and on-site payment solutions which caters to merchants, financial institutions and government agencies.

The emails detected by AppRiver contain “MERCHANT ACCOUNT UPDATE” as the subject line and claim to be from “FIRSTDATA SERVICES.” The message within reads: "Dear First Data customer, please update your login. Download the attachment in this e-mail and proceed." The attachment entitled “Update Your Account Information.html,” which when opened inside the browser, displays a fraudulent First Data Global Gateway login page which attempts to gather the merchant’s store number, user ID, tax ID, phone number and password.

Once the hacker has gained access to the First Data account, he/she most likely has gained control of that specific merchants account.