Billions of iPhone and Android owners warned to avoid ‘bank wipeout’

SMARTPHONE owners have been warned about fake emails that could wipe out their bank accounts.

There are many scammers out there that want nothing more than to steal your money.

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One of the most prominent methods used to achieve this is called phishing.

Phishing is a form of social engineering where attackers deceive people into divulging sensitive and financial information.

Such attacks can be carried out in a number of ways – but most commonly via fraudulent emails, SMS, or websites.

Cybercriminals who conduct phishing attacks typically pretend to be legitimate companies or pose as your friends or acquaintances.

A new report from Cofense has found that phishing attacks have increased by a staggering 569 percent, per Tech Radar.

Thankfully, tech giants like Apple and Google are working to counter phishing attacks by utilizing email-identifier tools such as BIMI.

BIMI, which stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification, basically certifies emails with brand logos.

“This means that the sender has met strong security and authentication requirements,” Apple explained on its website.

It currently works for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura 13 or later, and on iCloud.com, Apple added.

The tool works similarly in Gmail, automatically filtering out potentially malicious messages. 

“BIMI leverages Mark Verifying Authorities, like Certification Authorities, to verify logo ownership and provide proof of verification in a VMC,” Neil Kumaran, Senior Product Manager of Counter-Abuse Technology at Google, and Wei Chuang, Senior Software Engineer at Gmail Security, explained in a blog post.

“Once these authenticated emails pass our other anti-abuse checks, Gmail will start displaying the logo in the existing avatar slot,” Kumaran added.

BIMI has been praised by experts as a step in the right direction toward helping users mitigate their risk of becoming phishing victims.

“Gmail’s support of BIMI is a win for email authentication, brand trust, and consumers alike,” said Seth Blank, Chair of the AuthIndicators Working Group.

“BIMI gives organizations the opportunity to provide their customers with a more immersive email experience, strengthening email sender authentication across the entire email ecosystem,” Blank added.