THE STATE- OWNED telecommunications company has made significant progress in tracking down who has been distributing a number of fake ’TSTT’ e-mails asking customers for their e-mail and Internet account information.

But the company is still warning thousands of customers who use the company’s Internet services to be wary when giving their account information online as they are still investigating the nation-wide hoax ’TSTT’ e-mail which is being circulated.

When asked about the status of the investigations in relation to the hoax e-mail, Dennis Gordon, TSTT’s vice president of Operational Risk and Security Services, said, ’We have some leads.’

He did not disclose whether or not the company suspected whether it was an inside job.

According to TSTT representatives, the people circulating the e-mail are pretending to be TSTT employees requesting customers’ Internet and e-mail passwords and user names under the pretext that TSTT is now upgrading its ’tstt.net.tt’ services and therefore needs the information for such purposes.

TSTT’s communications officials, in a press release last week, alerted the public that they should not reply to the hoax TSTT e-mail or under any circumstances divulge their account information online, as the company will never require that such information be given via the Internet.

The company has said once the perpetrators are found, all action to bring the schemers to justice, while protecting customers’ confidential information and preventing any future defrauding of customers will be carried out.

Gordon said no reports of customers falling for the ’e-mail trick’ have been made, however, as citizens were becoming increasingly aware of ’phishing.’

Phishing is defined as the process by which an individual or group sends an e-mail falsely claiming to be a legitimate enterprise. The aim is to scheme the receiver of the e-mail into releasing personal information which can then be used in Internet fraud or identity theft.