How the Phishing Biz Works

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Christopher Abad has spent much of the past six months 'stalking the phisher underground,' Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'The typical phisher, he discovered, isn't a movie-style villain but a Romanian teenager, albeit one who belongs to a social and economic infrastructure that is both remarkably sophisticated and utterly ragtag. If, in the early days, phishing scams were one-person operations, they have since become so complicated that, just as with medicine or law, the labor has become specialized.' For instance, a phisher in Romania who successfully scores account information for someone in the U.S. may go on IRC to seek out a 'casher' to withdraw money from the target's account, and send a cut back to the phisher."

Comments

Movie style villain

[usernumber31337]

"'The typical phisher, he discovered, isn't a movie-style villain but a Romanian teenager"

A Romanian teenager is a typical movie style villain. Haven't they ever seen Blade?

Stereotype

[williamhooligan]

"The typical phisher, he discovered, isn't a movie-style villain but a Romanian teenager, albeit one who belongs to a social and economic infrastructure that is both remarkably sophisticated and utterly ragtag."

This is a vast exaggeration. The image of an eastern europe, 'ragtag' social and economic infrastructure is, for example, in complete contrast to the well-dressed, hip, bling-bling superstars that make up my crew.

We call it Fly Phishing.

meta-phishing

[samkass]

"Hello, I am a Nigerian 'phishing' hacker who steals money. But I have no way to withdraw the money from the accounts I've collected. I will give you an account number containing $50,000 in exchange for $1000 pre-paid into my account. Once I verify the money is in my account, you will receive instructions for how to access the $50,000."