Fraudulent email purporting to be related to the Bank of East Asia, Limited

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) wishes to alert members
of the public in Hong Kong to an e-mail purporting to be sent from
the Bank of East Asia, Limited (BEA). The e-mail requests customers
to use an embedded hyperlink to connect to a fraudulent website
("http://222.108.149.200/hkcyberbanking/") and verify their account
information by entering their Internet banking account's user name
and password. The fraudulent website looks similar to the bank's
Internet banking logon webpage. BEA has issued a press release
today (Wednesday) to clarify that BEA has not sent these e-mails to
its customers and has no connection with the fraudulent website. In
addition, BEA does not have the policy of sending e-mails asking
its customers to provide their passwords or verify their account
information online.

BEA has already reported the case to the Hong Kong Police Force
for investigation. Anyone who has provided personal information to
the website, or has conducted any financial transactions through
the website should contact BEA at 3608 2525 and any local Police
Station or the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police
Force at 2860 5012.

"Members of the public are reminded not to access their Internet
banking accounts through hyperlinks embedded in e-mails, Internet
search engines or suspicious pop-up windows. Instead, they should
access their Internet banking accounts by typing the website
addresses at the address bar of the browser, or by bookmarking the
genuine website and using that for access. If in doubt, they should
contact their banks," said an HKMA spokesperson.

For further enquiries, please contact:
Yokee Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1213 or
Natalie Wu, Officer (Communications), at 2878 8246

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
2 June 2010