Germany Makes Arrests In Global Phishing Scam

Monkier writes "PC World reports on a sting by German police resulting in the arrest of ten people suspected of a phishing scam. The group was targeted bank customers with emails from organizations like eBay and Deutsche Telekom. The team attached software to the emails that recorded data entered into the host computers. From the article: '"This case shows that criminal organizations are using the Internet more and more to gain enormous amounts of money with a supposedly low risk of being caught," said Crime Office President Joerg Ziercke in a statement. "The authorities face constant new challenges in the fight against computer crime where perpetrators are developing a higher degree of professionalism and specialization." The office said the suspects had led luxurious lifestyles involving expensive jewelry, cars and travel.'"

Comments

FP: Make an example of them.

[Tastecicles]

Throw away the key.

Re:FP: Make an example of them.

[Neanderthal Ninny]

Putting them into prison is too nice for these female donkey's external orifice. A slow torture of converting all of the spam they made into audio and listening it at 100db on a endless loop (I think they send out enough spam that wouldn't end anyways but just in case) would be sufficient suffering for this person.

Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been scamming people for years now, but they're never gonna get me!

-Bill G.

This is Germany

[Billosaur]

It's "pfishing"...

Re:This is Germany

[lordtoran]

You are a fascist and now officially godwined. This should be modded Troll.

BTW, the correct word is "fischen".

Global crime, national governments

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it, the world ain't divided into little independent fiefdoms anymore. Why do we keep acting like it is a good idea to have little nations all under their own regime?

For a global order, we need a global system of governance. Lucky for us, open source is taking the lead:
http://www.metagovernment.org/

It's still young, but it's better than anything else out there.

Re:Global crime, national governments

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, but I'd rather have the bastards sitting somewhere near, so it's easier to shoot them when the need arises. The EU is bad enough, faceless moloch that it has become...

Re:Global crime, national governments

[The Living Fractal]

Face it, the world IS STILL divided into little independent fiefdoms. And who is this 'we' that are acting like it's a good idea? Maybe you mean the people that recognize the nature of their power (of many types), and where it comes from? In other words, having a world government would severely hinder the "haves" in keeping themselves separate from the "nots".

I read the Metagovernment website. Pie-in-the-sky ideas. Sounds good on paper but the only thing that would ever make it even remotely possible to implement is massive, worldwide violence on a scale never before seen which somehow only killed the people who wanted to maintain their power.

Seriously, I mean, it sounds good but it's just not gonna go smoothly if it ever happens.

Re:Global crime, national governments

[morgan_greywolf]

In other words, having a world government would severely hinder the "haves" in keeping themselves separate from the "nots". Not if that world government was designed, created and run by the "haves."

Re:Global crime, national governments

[The Living Fractal]

The problem with the Bilderberg group and their meetings is, at least from my perspective, they never get anything really accomplished. Do you know of a place I can find a list of world changes and effects they've caused? It seems like they just go to these meetings to inflate their egos.

For a "world government" they don't seem to do much governing.

Re:Global crime, national governments

[bevoblake]

About as close as we could ever practically get would be a diplomatic entity with limited scope and power, resulting in a loose confederation of nations that comes together for regular discourse. Oh wait, that's the United Nations.

Tax rates and organised crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought I had a few months ago - the higher the income tax rate, the bigger the incentive is for economic crime. As a stylized example;

In country A you earn 100,000, pay 25,000 in tax that covers your public health system, 25,000 in tax to cover your education system, spend 25,000 on other life essentials, and are left with 25,000 to spend as you like.

In country B you earn 100,000, pay 5,000 in tax that covers your public health system and 20,000 in further insurance, pay 5,000 in tax to cover your education system and 20,000 to cover your study costs (enjoying the benefit of 25,000 in each), spend 25,000 on life essentials and are left with 25,000 to spend as they like.

A criminal in country A who earns 100,000 will pay 0 in health tax but enjoy healthcare equal to 25,000, pay 0 in education tax but enjoy healthcare equal to 25,000 spend 25,000 on life essentials and have 75,000 to spend as they like.

A criminal in country B who earns 100,000 will pay 0 in health tax and 20,000 in private health insurance, pay 0 in education tax and 20,000 in education costs, spend 25,000 on life essentials and have 35,000 to spend as they like.

I would suspect it's for this reason that criminals in Europe (of the petty crime type) in my view appear to enjoy significantly more comfortable lives and more luxury than in the US.

Re:Tax rates and organised crime

[Silver Sloth]

Poor and sick person in Country A receives the health care required without resorting to crime so as to pay for it.

Poor and sick person in Country B has to balance health care against other basic needs and is tempted into crime to pay for it.

So, the higher the tax rate the lower the basic incentive to comit crime.

Ok, so this is a hopelessly simplistic broad brush picture of a very complex situation, but, so was the OP.

Re:Tax rates and organised crime

[Anonymous Coward]

No, in country B, if you cannot afford healthcare, the Hospitals cannot refuse you. It comes out of taxpayer pockets at that point usually.

Re:Tax rates and organised crime

[Watson Ladd]

Smart criminals pay income tax on their gains to avoid getting nailed for tax fraud.

Re:Tax rates and organised crime

[Detritus]

All the hospital has to do is stabilize you and kick your ass out the door. They are under no obligation to provide non-emergency medical treatment. Have a serious illness? Sucks to be you.

Bedfellows

[Stanistani]

This is an example where customers and businesses are on the same side, with governments and law enforcement actually protecting them by catching the bad guys.

I'd like to see more of this.

Of course, with eBay still sending me emails with links, telling me not to trust emails with links...

Re:Bedfellows

[dada21]

This is an example where customers and businesses are on the same side, with governments and law enforcement actually protecting them by catching the bad guys.

Even though I'm an anti-state kind of guy, it is times like this that I can at least applaud government for doing something right, although probably very inefficiently.

I coaxed my retired father to join the web a few years back (e-mail, slingbox, casual web browsing) and I get 5-10 e-mails a week from him forwarding some bank notification that is a phishing attempt. He has bank accounts with every major bank so all the phishing e-mails hit a bank he has. I keep telling him that his bank won't e-mail him about anything important (maybe a bill notification or whatever), but I told him to NEVER EVER click a link or call a number in an e-mail from anyone other than myself and our direct family. I set up bookmarks for him to go direct, and also gave him the phone number to the banks to call in case he's worried.

For me, the best thing we can do is just teach others the right way to browse, read e-mails and reply to things that sound scary. While I do applaud the government here for slamming some fraudsters, I think it is way cheaper, more secure and more protective of our freedoms to provide proper education to each other, rather than rely on government. All they'll use this for is more reasons to encroach on our inherent rights and take away more privacies.

As more people get burned, more people will learn. Fall off your bike a few times and you'll either realize you need more practice, or you shouldn't bike. We don't need the bike-fall police to protect us.

Note to others: train your parents, children, siblings and friends on the problems regarding phishing or any scam e-mails.

Re:Bedfellows

[Stanistani]

Unfortunately, yes. I called eBay's tech support and emailed their anti-phishing folks, and they confirmed that the emails were part of their anti-phishing efforts.

The folks I communicated with could not see the logical fallacy.

I just wish the "victims" were more careful

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that I'm imposing my North-american-centric, socially-unfriendly view here, but why can't people just be a little LESS trusting. These problems would go away quickly if people would just educate themselves a bit and learn that the Internet is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" and you just HAVE TO BE CAREFUL.

yeah, yeah... I'm blaming the victim...flame on

Re:I just wish the "victims" were more careful

[hiryuu]

These problems would go away quickly if people would just educate themselves a bit and learn that the Internet is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" and you just HAVE TO BE CAREFUL.


I don't think you're blaming the victim by stating a fact - and I think it is likely fact that a significant proportion of these crimes occur because the victim either didn't know better or didn't think it over in an adequately critical fashion.

In an offline example, I got beaten and mugged earlier this summer while walking home. I had my iPod going, was in my own little world, and wasn't paying close enough (nor paranoid enough) attention around me. In the back of my mind, I registered the presence of the assailants, but wasn't cautious enough. Was it my fault? Not by any means - the fault lies with the two bastards who jumped me and took my stuff. Would it have been avoided if I'd been more situationally aware and paranoid? Hell yeah.

Hang 'em high, but...

[athloi]

I have no pity for commercial spammers, phishers, profit-driven crackers, and other slightly techno-savvy common criminals.

But, can we also take computers away from the people who endlessly fall for these scams and make work for the rest of us? I understand that Grandmaw wants to email, but no operating system on earth can keep her safe from running corrupt executables. Maybe she needs a blackberry instead.

Re:Hang 'em high, but...

[QuantumTheologian]

Perhaps this illustrates a significant problem with the current computing paradigm that everyone has their own PC. I mean, it's fine for anyone reading /. to perform administrative tasks, mess around with the operating system, etc. etc., but for most people this doesn't really make sense. For a common user who only wants to do basic things like web browsing, email, or maybe word processing, wouldn't a thin client on a not-particularly-powerful machine with most applications and things server-side make more sense? This way you could do away with having to deal with software updates, virus scans, and other annoying administration that is not really necessary to use applications.

Re:Hang 'em high, but...

[Opportunist]

Could we hang the idiots next to them, who make it trivial to turn their machines into spambots and ddos-sheeps?

The fools who're gullible enough for phishing at least are also the ones who are damaged. That's ok. With spambots and sheep, they hurt someone else. And that's where I ain't really relaxed anymore, especially when looking at the size of Storm. This has the potential to become more than a mere nuisance.

Re:Hang 'em high, but...

[Detritus]

Why not have an operating system that only runs code that has been audited and signed by a trusted party? You might not want such a thing but many people would be better off with a system that was more difficult to exploit.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent makes the ideal counterpoint to the grandparent. Both are in my opinion valid arguments and deserve some thought. The question is, which society would you rather live in...

The trusted client problem

[UninvitedCompany]

The core problem is that the client system was compromised and as a result all the SSL in the world won't help. Clueless users will always be with us. It will always be the case that if you send out enough emails with plausible links, someone will click on them.

Banks should make greater use of authentication tokens like those provided by SecurID, because they offer a secure platform that is much more difficult to compromise with fishing attacks.

stark staring lunacy

[Quadraginta]

Why do we keep acting like it is a good idea to have little nations all under their own regime?

Because it is?

I mean, let's try this braying poxy ass of an excuse for a "thought" in other arenas:

"Why do we keep acting like it is a good idea to let everyone run whatever operating system they like on their own computer? We need a global standard OS that everyone has to use, so all the application writers can do their work most efficiently. (And so can the virus writers, ha ha.)"

"Why do we keep acting like every state in the US should be able to make its own laws with respect to, e.g. coastal access or air quality or business law? What we need is a one national -- nay, global! -- standard that says that the rules must be exactly the same for Fresno fruit companies hiring seasonal grape pickers as for Frankfurt auto design firms hiring accountants, no matter what those silly short-sighted people who actually live and work there might think. Imagine how efficient it would be for the lawyers if one mighty emperor made all the rules!"

"Why do we keep acting like everyone should be able to pick out their own mate, live the way they want in the house they want, buy the car they want, et cetera and so forth? What's with all this damn freedom? Don't you people realize it naturally creates inefficiency? Do ants or termites act this way? No, and look at how much more effective and interesting their lives are! What we need is a global system where everyone has to follow the exact same procedure in picking a mate or buying a house, has to buy the same car, eat the same diet, et cetera and so forth. How very efficient and orderly that would be!"

Sheesh. The amazing thing about a fascist tyranny is that it hardly ever gets imposed on a people by some gang of thugs. Usually people do it themselves, gladly, in the name of security and efficiency.

Re:stark staring lunacy

[MrDoh1]

"Why do we keep acting like everyone should be able to pick out their own mate..."

Oblig Simpsons quote...
Comic Book Guy: Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding
                                will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will
                                mean much less breeding, for me, much much more.

Bedfellows

[oldmacdonald]

Are you _sure_ they were from eBay?

he said ECONOMIC crime

[Quadraginta]

A poor and sick person almost by definition can't commit economic crimes, crimes that requires some capital to get going, like phishing scams.

The argument that poor and sick people steal or rob in order to afford health care is one of the oldest and most ridiculous canards there is. Can you think of anyone, ever, anywhere who has been arrested repeatedly for, say, felony auto theft -- and it turned out he did it just to afford his cancer medicine? Neither can I.

Modern society is not Dickensian England, nor less 14th century France. If you have average intelligence and even a modest amount of self-discipline, you can make enough money to afford the bare minimum required to keep you alive and healthy, including a decent healthy diet (which may not include going out to McDonald's four times a week), and decent healthcare (which may not include liver transplants and heart stents, but will include immunizations and emergency care for car accidents).

Folks get into crime because just surviving isn't enough for them -- they want to live a life of ease and power, without having to work hard at all. And then they're not intelligent enough to realize that crime is not the clever "angle" to wealth and power that no one's thought of before.

Re:he said ECONOMIC crime

[Detritus]

It may not be Dickensian England, but the idea that anyone can make it in this society with a little effort is laughable. Many people have problems that make it difficult or impossible to get and hold a job. Some are self-inflicted, some are a result of genetics, their upbringing, location, or bad luck. Getting any job, let alone a job with health insurance, is difficult. Even in a healthy economy, they are the last to be hired and the first to be laid off. It doesn't help that there are a large number of illegal immigrants willing to take all of the low-end jobs that used to be available to people with minimal skills.

Good

[joe 155]

I'm glad someone actually did something about this problem, although this is just a drop in the ocean - if even that. I got a scam email from "ebay" the other day, I onticed that it was obviously a scam, but more importantly it was a scam from within the UK (my country). I looked up and found out the guy's name who was running it (or at least the name he used to register - which he would need a credit card to buy, which has to be registered somewhere).

This would be trivially easy for the police to sort out so I looked hoping to find somewhere easy to report it, the answer I got was pretty much "we don't care, don't tell us"... So he just goes on getting away with it

Re:Good

[cdrguru]

Most registrars will allow phony names to be used and they do not do any cross-checking. If I want to registe a domain to "Santa Claus" I can even though I used my credit card to do it.

Police? They pretty much say they have bigger problems or it isn't worth their time. In the US you need to get at least $25,000 worth of damages and then the FBI will look into it. Just to be on the safe side, you better have lost $100,000 to get any real attention.

Nobody cares and enforcement actions like this are less than a drop in the bucket. It is a free crime that zero enforcement ensures will continue every day. Just like panhandling. You can't stop it, so just learn to live with it.

Phishing is like panhandling

[cdrguru]

Deal with it. If you are too stupid to not get taken in, then you probably deserve it.

Trying to stop it is like trying to stop panhandling. It may be disgusting and annoying but there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Educated people know not to pass out money to people on the street. Sympathatic folks that have a good heart make sure these people keep coming back for more.

Just like the people that buy stuff from spam and click links in emails.

And, surprising pretty much no one...

[kosty]

U.S. Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell said the surveillance program had made "significant contributions" in discovering and breaking up a suspected plot in Germany to bomb , err, rather..., Inconvenience American installations? He cited them as a reason that the U.S. Congress should reject attempts to restrict it.

How sinful

[Tired and Emotional]

They used all that money for a luxurious lifestyle.

Presumably if you defraud people for large sums but use the funds to live quietly in the suburbs, its not a crime.

From TFA

[Chris Tucker]

"... Attached to the emails was so-called Trojan horse software which records data entered in computers using the Windows Operating System."

Fixed your typo!

HTH!

HAND!

Re:-1 Flamebait, -1 Whoring

[lordtoran]

I'm very proud he is not a citizen of my country.

well then... counter point

[cheekyboy]

The poor can still commit insurance fraud, they can still commit welfare fraud (25 fake accounts) with little effort but high risk. And if you get caught, bingo free health care in prison.

The poor can also get their health poor brother or cousin or father to commit some skimming or sly on the side jobs for high cash, zero tax rewards.

You could argue banks are criminals for charging multi layer fees for 2 seconds of computer work, they still make money and profit.