The reason the bank gave for refusing to handle payments from the controversial website was that “Wikileaks may be engaged in activities that are… inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments.”  Which could mean anything.

Wikileaks hit back by asking supporters to stop using bank of America, though this is a tougher sell given the difficulties people face in moving their accounts from one bank to another these days.

The bank of America, based in North Carolina also said that they will ”not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for Wikileaks” but left the statement at that without providing clarification about what types of transaction this could cover.

The war of words between Wikileaks and businesses that have withdrawn services from it is set to rumble on into the new year and it will be interesting to see what companies, if any, will be the next to line up against the website.

It’s entirely possible that this could throttle Wikileaks to a point where they simply have to close their doors and shut up shop.  Fear not though because the scandal has inspired whole generations of people to take up arms and Wikileaks in 2011 will be only one of a great number of whistle-blowing websites out on the world wide web.

A new phishing email (via Trend Micro)that recently emerged claimed that the user’s Bank of America account was accessed by an international IP from an unregistered computer and that their “Foreign IP Spy” detected that breach.

It is asking the user to verify and register his current computer by logging in to the Bank of America website. That link leads to a new window which opens a phishing website that is using a fake address bar. Most users who clicked on that link will surely enter their login information.

This approach is basically appealing to the user to secure his account. That’s tricky and many users will probably fall for this because they believe that thiefs would not ask them to secure their accounts. What they obviously miss is the fact that the added security feature is fake and not existing.

Websites with that fake address bar can be easily identified by right-clicking on that website and selecting properties from the context menu if Internet Explorer is the browser of choice. Firefox users click on Page Info in that right-click menu while Opera users press Alt + Enter or right-click and selected Edit Site Preferences.

The best protection against phishing is to not open any links in emails. Always open the website directly in the browser. If you are insecure call the company and ask if they have send that email to you.