HSBC Virus? a word of warning!?

Question

My friend had a very unfortuanate experience while he was internet banking yesterday.
While Logging into the HSBC website he was instantly greeted by a pop up asking him to enter account details and also name and address,
Now this person is not overly clued up on malicious activity on the internet, but fortunately he twigged that in all his 4 years of internet banking this never happened. He rang the bank which the advisor then changed te details - i suppose just in case!
The computer in question has Mcafee internet suite 2006 and since then it was ok.
It just goes to show guys that you gotta be careful! so careful!
So coming back to my question - what kind of Malicious file may you think this would be?
and how! did it slip through the net.
Obviously its a scan of some sort?
Would it have been a new malicious file that mcafee isnt aware of as its rather new?
He has a full licence for the Mcafee product - no copy (Before anyone asks lol)
Id like to hear your views! Many Thanks

Yes Dee not just HSBC i understand. Scams are everywhere!

ehc11 - im not saying you will get this for sure, i am just making people aware that this is out there, as alot of people are not as clued up as they should be, but thanks for your input just the same!

Answer 1

Its unlikely that its on the banks server but not impossible. The connection between your friends pc and the bank should be a secure connection to a secure server. So the odds are that its something on your friends pc.
Unfortunately there is no security suite or program that will give you 100% protection if you're connected to the net, so its possible that something slipped past.
Your friend needs to update his security programs at least once a week and run them regularly.
I'd suspect something on his web browser. You can use the free version of Spyware Doctor to scan, you get it from
www.pctools.com
If it does find anything it won't remove it until you've paid for the program; but it will give the name and filepath so you can copy that info and look elsewhere for the solution.
Spywareblaster works with Internet Explorer. It won't uninstall spyware that is already on your pc, but it will prevent hijacks and other malicious changes to I.E. So once your friend has checked out his system he can install it for more peace of mind in the future.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
One thing that does concern me is that Internet Explorer should have alerted him to the fact that the pop up was from a different address than the banks page. Get him to check his security settings in I.E, by going to
tools - internet options - security and checking that the level is set to Medium. Some malware reset the settings to Low and then you're in trouble. If you click the Custom button you can choose different settings, and you can return them to the default if you realise you've got them wrong.

Answer 2

I would never give my account # or info to ANY internet. I do my banking the old fashion way, I drive to the bank. When I go to an ATM, and they ask for my pin#, I cover the camara while putting it in. You can never be too careful and you just proved it to me. Thank you

Answer 3

During the last week i've got several emails from as-if HSBC. It is not my bank, i've never heard of it before.
It is well-known theft schema: you get to a site that looks exactly as a real one. Then they ask you some questions allowing them to manage your account.

Answer 4

I've just logged on to it and had no popup and my popup blocker hasn't had to block one either. Just thought I'd let you know!

Answer 5

thanks for the warning, even thou I dont use HSBC, it can happen at any online bank...