The e-mail is the latest in a growing trend of phishing expeditions, where fraudsters attempt to trick users out of confidential bank account details.
New Zealand IT columnist "Aardvark" has reported a New Zealand version of the e-mail targeting Westpac customers in that country.
Westpac has been a victim of phishing before, and has started an education campaign to reduce the number of people taken in by the scam.
The latest e-mail has another level of sophistication over previous scams. The link included in the e-mail appears to go to a Westpac page – although the gibberish included in the URL is an indicator it is fake – but uses the technique of including an "@" symbol to take the user to a site hosted in Russia.
The Russian Web site then opens a pop-up window requesting the users details, and redirects itself to the legitimate Westpac bank's privacy policy page. If the customer is not paying attention, or inexperienced with the Internet, they may be fooled into thinking the pop-up was produced by Westpac.
today I received a Westpac email (complete with logo and return Westpac email address, ABN number and registered trademark). I have no Westpac accounts whatsoever.
It's obviously a scam. Do you require a hard copy of this email?