Overview

• Fresh phishing messages claim new security guidelines and demand a one-time confirmation of account details by July 8 under threat of temporary online-banking suspension
• The fraudulent emails omit the bank’s logo and use impersonal salutations, suspicious sender addresses and embedded links to mimic official communications
• The Verbraucherzentrale advises customers to move suspicious messages to the spam folder and verify any data requests on Volksbank’s official website or app
• These attacks follow months of escalating campaigns that expanded in May to ING, Klarna and Commerzbank and in late June began deploying banking Trojans that overlay legitimate apps
• Authorities warn that low adoption of strong passwords and two-factor authentication in Germany heightens vulnerability and recommend regularly updating security software