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Nigerian Scammers Infect Themselves With Own Malware, Reveal New Fraud Scheme (ieee.org)
"A pair of security researchers recently uncovered a Nigerian scammer ring that they say operates a new kind of attack...after a few of its members accidentally infected themselves with their own malware," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Over the past several months, they've watched from a virtual front row seat as members used this technique to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from small and medium-sized businesses worldwide." Wave723 writes: Nigerian scammers are becoming more sophisticated, moving on from former 'spoofing' attacks in which they impersonated a CEO's email from an external account. Now, they've begun to infiltrate employee email accounts to monitor financial transactions and slip in their own routing and account info...The researchers estimate this particular ring of criminals earns about US $3 million from the scheme.
After they infected their own system, the scammers' malware uploaded screenshots and all of their keystrokes to an open web database, including their training sessions for future scammers and the re-routing of a $400,000 payment. Yet the scammers actually "appear to be 'family men' in their late 20s to 40s who are well-respected, church-going figures in their communities," according to the article. SecureWorks malware researcher Joe Stewart says the scammers are "increasing the economic potential of the region they're living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this."
After they infected their own system, the scammers' malware uploaded screenshots and all of their keystrokes to an open web database, including their training sessions for future scammers and the re-routing of a $400,000 payment. Yet the scammers actually "appear to be 'family men' in their late 20s to 40s who are well-respected, church-going figures in their communities," according to the article. SecureWorks malware researcher Joe Stewart says the scammers are "increasing the economic potential of the region they're living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this."
Why wouldn't they? I mean, they're not even part of the society they're stealing/scamming from. It's historically not been hard for one government to convince its citizens to go loot/pillage that area run by the wrong government
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Is there supposed to be a correlation between these two things? I'm not sure, though I do go to the Church of Discordia quite regularly.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
These people are simply criminals that should be sought out and arrested. I don't fall for the BS that their crimes help the local community. Assholes, plain and simple.
These people are counting on exactly what telephone scam artists counted on for decades. First no phone calls were ever made within your own state. That kept local law enforcement out of the loop. Further, the cop shops took bribes and it was explained to them that a lot of money would be in the town as the workers were well paid. The effect was that state and local laws enforcement only touched about 1% of the phone rooms no matter how crooked they were and they were and they were all crooked, although the employees often could not see how corrupt their employers were. So how about federal cops making arrests? Last year the DOJ prosecuted 13 companies for phone sales fraud. they went after only companies in which huge fines could be assessed. I will bet that at least 30,000 phone sales outfits exist in Florida alone. The message that phone sales people get is that it is open season on the public. Here is another gimmick : The sales man makes the call and gets a yes from the target. Then he tells you to hang on as he transfers you to the verification department so your package gets out to you as soon as possible. When he transfers you it is to another state entirely. So if you manage to file an expensive law suit and drag them into court you will suddenly discover that the sale took place in another place in which the verification department took your charge card number . that means you will have to start the suit over gain in another state and by the time it comes to trial most sales will not allow the case to be heard. I even saw this in a gas station accident. The victim sued the gas station as the mechanic ran over them while working on a car. When it finally got to court the gas station owner remarked he did not know why he was being sued as the repair bay was another company entirely. the time tolled before the victim could get back into the court system.
Their theft should be publicized, and the bounty paid by the US gov't for their head = 1/10 that amount stolen.
Sound draconian? The fact is that if we had a ring of thieves in this country* that were routinely scamming hundreds of thousands from people, we would be mobilizing at least scores of millions of dollars of FBI assets to put them down - either arrested or killed. As we do not have such resources, we could rely on their partners amorality and greed to kill each other off.
*not called "congress" or employees of Goldman Sachs, that is.
-Styopa
"the SecureWorks team has witnessed the thieves deploy this method to reroute transactions averaging between US $30,000 and $60,000 .. In one case, the attackers rerouted a $400,000 payment from a U.S. chemical company to its Indian supplier."
None of this would be financially viable if not for the corrupt local banking system.
Like they say in their letters