Incidents

Operation reWired: The FBI arrests 300 hackers in different countries

Cybercrime has been punched in the face. Ethical hacking specialists report that the FBI has commanded an international operation that led to the arrest of more than 200 persons involved in a scam via emails that have spawned large economic losses for the victims.

According to experts in ethical hacking, a few
months ago the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) disclosed that the
attempted email
fraud
, a practice known as Business Email Compromise (BEC), increased
100% over the past year, as well as economic losses arising from this activity.

Through Operation reWired, authorities managed
to arrest a total of 281 suspects; 167 of these arrests occurred in Nigeria,
which for years has become a kind of hub for such campaigns. In addition, 74 of
these arrests occurred in the U.S., 18 in Turkey, 15 in Ghana, and a few others
in Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Malaysia.

Ethical hacking specialists claim that, despite
being widely known, such scams continue to generate profits for the operators
of malicious campaigns. “Although there are multiple variables to exploit,
in most cases attackers try to deceive employees of the target company, posing
as suppliers or government agencies to get money transfers,” the experts
said.

At the conclusion of the operation, the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ) described the development of one of these
campaigns. Two of the people arrested in the U.S., Brittney Stokes and Kenneth
Ninalowo, were charged with scamming staff in a community college in Illinois
for more than $3M USD. Three years ago, the university had to cover a payment
to a construction company, so it received an email, allegedly sent from the Minneapolis-based
construction company.

The message asked the university to update its
information in the Automated Clearing House electronic payment system. After
doing so, the company sent the agreed payment to a new account operated by the
criminals, from where the payment was divided into checks of less than $10k USD
that were sent to multiple companies.

However, Bank of America detected this
activity, froze the criminals’ bank account, and returned most of the money to
the university. The bank detected that one of the checks was sent to Steno
Logistics, a company created just a few days before the university began
receiving these emails, which helped authorities arrest the suspects. Those
arrested have also been charged with fraud against an electrical power
supplier, whose name was not disclosed by the DOJ, in December 2017.

An important element in preventing such attacks
is attention to detail. International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS)
ethical hacking specialists recommend verifying the legitimacy of a website or
email address, making phone calls to confirm electronic transactions, and
implementing email spam filters to prevent such scams.

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