There has been a phishing website that was unlawfully impersonating Straits Financial LLC, in particular using without permission our corporate story, branding, and logo to mislead users. Upon investigation, we have amongst other things obtained confirmation from MetaQuotes that this is an illegitimate client terminal that does not have the valid MetaQuotes digital signature – the version seen on the phishing website is outdated and no longer supported by MetaQuotes. A police report will be lodged with the Vietnamese authorities and action has been taken with the various website vendors to take down the phishing website. We urge users to be prudent when dealing with such unverified websites and watch out for tell-tale signs such as a suspicious domain name in this case.
Using this fraudulent website as an example, below are some generic guidelines for tell-tale signs:
- Check for valid SSL Certificate – Straits Financial Official website will always be enabled with SSL. This fraudulent website as shown below is not enabled with valid SSL certificate.
-
- Check the domain name – It is technically possible for any persons with malicious intent to use any domain names to impersonate as Straits Financial Group and have a valid SSL certificate to avoid having the obvious indicators mentioned above. In this case, the domain name (dingyilm.com) raise suspicions since it is not related to Straits Financial in any way.
- Be Vigilant and study the contents – Always be vigilant especially when there is a request for your personal information and monetary transactions are involved. In this case, the website does not have an English version available, and generally lacks information.
- Contact the company if in any doubt
- For information – below lists the domain names hosting Straits Financial Group official websites(as of Feb 2023).
- straitsfinancial.com
- straitscache.com
