River Valley Credit Union latest target for phishers

River Valley Credit Union members: ignore that e-mail you got, asking you to verify the details of your private life.

If it looks dubious to you, it's probably because it is.

Around 2 p.m., credit union officials discovered their Web site was the target of "phishers," or hackers trying to steal personal information via the Internet.

That's when calls started coming in from credit union members, confused by an e-mail message they'd received, requesting personal information.

That tipped credit union officials off immediately, said Bob Furman, marketing director for the credit union: "We'd never ask for that kind of information over e-mail, or even in the mail."

As of Tuesday evening, no funds were reported stolen from the credit union's $47 million assets. And only a handful of its 17,500 members had reported the e-mails.

Still, Furman said, credit union officials contacted the FBI and have tapped an Internet security firm to monitor the site.

"It's a little frightening," he said. "This sort of thing usually happens to big, interstate banks. It's the first time we've seen it happen to one so small in this area."

The phishers apparently copied the River Valley logo and the logo for the National Credit Union Association from the credit union's Web site and sent out e-mails -- how many is not yet clear -- with a link to a fraudulent site prompting members for their Social Security number and bank account information.