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FBI Cracks "Largest Phishing Case Ever"

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the inbox-still-full-of-spam dept.

nk497 writes "The FBI and Egyptian authorities have arrested 100 people in what they're calling 'the largest international phishing case ever conducted' as part of a wide-scale investigation called Operation Phish Phry. The criminals used phishing to get access to hundreds of bank accounts, stealing $1.5 million. 'This international phishing ring had a significant impact on two banks and caused huge headaches for hundreds, perhaps thousands of bank customers,' said Acting US Attorney George S. Cardona."

9 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. That was fast by Bob_Who · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....talk about damage control!

    1. Re:That was fast by A.+B3ttik · · Score: 5, Funny

      Lets set up our e-mail accounts to forward all Spam to the head of the FBI. If this story is any indication, it shouldn't take more than 45 minutes to get rid of the problem.

    2. Re:That was fast by Jurily · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your post advocates a

      ( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante

      approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

      ( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
      ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
      ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
      ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
      ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
      ( ) Users of email will not put up with it
      ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
      (X) The police will not put up with it
      ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
      ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
      ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
      ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
      ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

      Specifically, your plan fails to account for

      ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
      ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
      ( ) Open relays in foreign countries
      ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
      ( ) Asshats
      ( ) Jurisdictional problems
      ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
      ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
      ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
      ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
      ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
      (X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
      ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
      ( ) Extreme profitability of spam
      (X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
      ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
      ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
      ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
      (X) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
      ( ) Outlook

      and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

      ( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
      been shown practical
      ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
      ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
      ( ) Blacklists suck
      ( ) Whitelists suck
      ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
      ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
      (X) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
      ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
      ( ) Sending email should be free
      ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
      ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
      (X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
      ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
      (X) I don't want the government reading my email
      ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

      Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

      (X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
      ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
      ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
      house down!

    3. Re:That was fast by justinlee37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you had read the article, you'd notice that the FBI have been working on this particular case since 2007. The story about Mueller nearly falling for a phishing scam is from 2009. I don't think the two events have anything to do with each other.

    4. Re:That was fast by xonar · · Score: 4, Funny

      You must be new here

  2. Jurisdiction by TwistedGreen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shouldn't this have been handled by the Department of Phisheries?

  3. Re:Quick! by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't forget that he'll need to re-validate his security credentials at http://confirm.credentials.here.genuine.yourbank.fsdnp4895.imgonnagetyourmoney.com/bankbanksecurity.html

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  4. Codename by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Funny

    I swear I would have never believe that the FBI had it in them to pick a name as cool sounding as "Operation Phish Phry".

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  5. Re:Quick! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://confirm.credentials.here.genuine.yourbank.fsdnp4895.imgonnagetyourmoney.com/bankbanksecurity.html [imgonnagetyourmoney.com]

    Am I the only one that thinks it's sad that Slashdot's code for avoiding accidental goatse clicks is better than many mail client's code for avoiding having someone steal all of your money?

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    I am TheRaven on Soylent News