The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has dealt a severe blow to cybercrime. Vulnerability testing experts reported that American authorities have arrested 18 hackers from various countries allegedly involved in multiple financial frauds, stealing tens of millions of dollars from both banking and users.
The DOJ mentions that these cyberciminals are
involved in the theft of ATMs and money laundering in at least 17 American
states.
According to reports from vulnerability testing experts, all of these hackers have been accused of committing multiple crimes, including bank fraud, electronic device fraud, identity theft, among others. “All defendants were found importing devices for the theft of bank cards (known as skimmers) from multiple parts of the world to deploy them in different locations and extract the victim’s information when they entered their card in the machine”, said Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
This skimming network obtained the payment card
information of the victims by using advanced technology equipment after
manufacturing fake payment cards with the data of the victims to empty their
bank accounts.
If they’re found guilty, the criminals will
face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit electronic
fraud, aggravated identity theft, among other felonies. Each of the defendants
could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison.
A few weeks ago, vulnerability testing
specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) reported the
finding of a new variant of malware
designed to exploit vulnerabilities at Indian Banks ATM machines to extract
users’ information. This malware, identified as ATMDtrack, allows threat actors
to access and store each card’s data when it is inserted at the compromised ATM
machine. Apparently the threat actors who created this malware are members of
the infamous Lazarus hacking group, linked to North Korean intelligence
agencies.
