A title insurance firm in Virginia is suing its bank after an eight-day cyber heist involving more than $2 million in thefts and more than $200,000 in losses last year. In an unusual twist, at least some of the Eastern European thieves involved in the attack have already been convicted and imprisoned for their roles in the crime.
Computer crooks stole at least $139,000 from the town coffers of Pittsford, New York this week. The theft is the latest reminder of the widening gap between the sophistication of organized cyber thieves and the increasingly ineffective security measures employed by many financial institutions across the United States.
The attack began on or around June 1, 2011, when someone logged into the online commercial banking account of the Town of Pittsford, a municipality of 25,000 not far from Rochester, N.Y. The thieves initiated a small batch of automated clearing house (ACH) transfers to several money mules, willing or unwitting individuals in the U.S.A. who had been recruited by the attackers prior to the theft. The mules pulled the money out of their bank accounts in cash and wired it to individuals in Saint Petersburg, Russia and Kiev, Ukraine via transfer services Western Union and Moneygram.
An online banking robbery in which computer crooks stole $63,000 from a Kansas car dealership illustrates the deftness with which cyber thieves are flouting the meager security measures protecting commercial accounts at many banks.
Authorities in the United States and Moldova apprehended at least eight individuals alleged to have helped launder cash for an international cyber crime gang that stole more than $70 million from small to mid-sized organizations in recent months. In Wisconsin,… Read More »
A major new malware spam campaign mimicking invites sent via business networking site LinkedIn.com leverages user trust and a kitchen sink of browser exploits in a bid to install the password-stealing ZeuS Trojan.
A recent chat with an individual who was almost tricked into helping organized criminals launder thousands of dollars stolen through e-banking fraud introduced me to one of the most clever and convincing money mule recruitment Web sites I’ve ever encountered.… Read More »
Organized thieves stole more than $600,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa earlier this month, sending the money in small chunks overseas with the help of dozens of co-conspirators here in the United States.
A business telephone equipment company in Texas is trying to force its bank into a settlement over an attack by organized cyber thieves last year that cost the company $50,000.
Attorneys for Dallas-based Hi-Line Supply Inc. recently convinced a state court to require depositions from officials at Community Bank, Inc. of Rockwall, Texas, to learn more about what the bank knew in the days and hours surrounding Aug. 20, 2009, when crooks broke into the company’s online bank accounts and transferred roughly $50,000 to four individuals across the country who had no prior business with Hi-Line.
In very few of the many stories I’ve written about online banking fraud against businesses has insurance paid for much — if any — of the losses victim companies suffered. However, several victims I’ve interviewed from recent incidents did have cybersecurity insurance coverage bundled as part of a larger business risk insurance policies; in each case, the businesses suffered fairly substantial thefts, and appear likely to recoup all of their direct financial losses.
David Green normally only accessed his company’s online bank account from his trusty Mac laptop. Then one day this April while he was home sick, Green found himself needing to authorize a transfer of money out of his firm’s account. Trouble was, he’d left his Mac at work. So he decided to log in to the company’s bank account using his wife’s Windows PC.
Unfortunately for Green, that PC was the same computer his kids used to browse the Web, chat, and play games online. It was also the same computer that organized thieves had already compromised with a password-stealing Trojan horse program.
A few days later, the crooks used those same credentials to steal nearly $100,000 from the company’s online accounts, sending the money in sub- $10,000 and sub-$5,000 chunks to 14 individuals across the United States.
