Cyber criminals have changed tack in their ongoing scam campaign against banks, moving to the use of government agencies to gain the trust of unsuspecting email recipients.

In a new phishing email, purporting to be from the Australian Federal Police’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, scammers inform recipients that the division has been notified about several suspicious payments from their credit card account

“Upon closer investigation we concluded that nine (9) of your payments are related to known criminal organizations, some of them currently under investigation for participating in the recent cybernetic attacks on Commonwealth Bank of Australia,” the scam email says.

“Your case has received code 2 priority and you are under suspicion of aiding known criminals. Your credit card account may have helped the criminals in their attacks.”

[For more on PC security, see our story, 5 steps to secure a new PC.

The scam email then tells recipients to click on a link to a secure server in order to prove their lack of culpability.

“Please note that failure to cooperate will lead to the advancement of our investigation,” the email reads. “You will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Your assets and funds will be frozen until the end of our investigation.”

The email tells recipients that the investigation into fraudulent transactions is a federal investigation, and that recipients should not contact their local authorities or bank.

“You will wait for one of our agents to contact you within 48 hours. We suspect local involvment in this matter. Failure to do so will ad a charge of "obstruction of justice" to you,” the email reads.

The email also encourages recipients to download a scam monitoring software, telling the, that as a measure of precaution, the AFP is able to provide free monitoring of their account against all future hacking and phishing attacks.

“We respect your privacy, we will not monitor your account transactions or personal info,” the email reads.

“Our software has a 99.57% rate of success in detecting and stoping cybernetic attacks. Also we have agents supervising the software 24/7. If you wish to subscribe to this service, more info will be provided when our agent contacts you. More info available here.”