China Central Television reported the discovery of a bogus Bank of China (BOC) website on its December 7 edition of Economics News. Police have now blocked the site and the bank is attempting to determine whether any losses have occurred.

About two hours before airtime on Tuesday, the CCTV program's staff received a call from a man who told them he had discovered what appeared to be a fake bank website.

When they investigated, the reporters found a site that appeared to be authentic, with logo, design and information almost identical to those of the official BOC website.

On closer examination, however, the reporters began to see discrepancies. First, the domain name was not that of the authentic site. Moreover, the name of the bank appeared in English on the bogus site as "Bank off China."

Most importantly, the fake site included windows for users to input their personal identification numbers and passwords. The authentic site does not contain such windows.

When the reporters typed information into the windows, a page appeared indicating that the system was being maintained.

It is believed that the operators of the site may have been collecting the information to access customers' accounts.

The CCTV staff notified the BOC's information office and the police. The bogus website was blocked within seven hours of the initial report.

A notice concerning the incident was added to the Chinese-language homepage of the authentic BOC site on Wednesday. It does not appear on the English page.

Police and bank officials are working to identify the operators of the site and determine whether any financial losses have occurred.

The URL for the authentic BOC website is www.bank-of-china.com.

(China.org.cn December 8, 2004)