South Dakota Online Banking

It appears that the hard working people of rural South Dakota are not the only ones pharming our great state. The Attorney General has warning South Dakota consumers who bank on-line to be wary of a new Internet scam called pharming. This scam, like many others, attempts to steal personal information (identity theft). The sophistication reached by these scam artists shows in the pharming scam. Pharmers redirect users from legitimate commercial web sites and lead them to fraudulent ones. The bogus sites look like the legitimate sites the consumer was trying to go to.

If you do your banking or pay your bills on-line, the virus will recognize when you try to access the bank's web site and redirect you to another fake site. The pharmer infects your computer with a virus while you are at the fake site. The pharmers have also been known to hack into your service provider's server and change the numerical address of the bank's web site to the numerical address of their fake site. Either way the pharmer captures your personal information without you suspecting any wrongdoing. Now that the pharmer has the seeds, he sows them by selling lists of personal data to people all to willing to use that data to take your money.

The best ways to avoid pharming attacks is to continually run updated anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer. If you can live with them install firewalls. When going to a supposedly secure site, make sure the web address in your browser starts with HTTPS. Double click on the padlock icon to see who owns the security certificate. A fake site either doesn't have a certificate or if it does have a certificate it will be owned by someone other than the owner of the true site you were trying to access. If your bank's web site doesn't look the same or if the web site requests different log-in information, get out and call the bank.

If you suspect you have been a victim of a "pharming" attack or any other internet scam, contact the Consumer Protection Division at 605-773-4400.