Cyber criminals have stolen at least $40 million from small to mid-sized companies across America in a sophisticated but increasingly common form of online banking fraud, the FBI said this week. According to the FBI and other fraud experts, the perpetrators have stuck to the same basic tactics in each attack. They steal the victim's online banking credentials with the help of malicious software distributed through spam. The intruders then initiate a series of unauthorized bank transfers out of the ...
Cyber criminals have stolen at least $40 million from small to mid-sized companies across America in a sophisticated but increasingly common form of online banking fraud, the FBI said this week. According to the FBI and other fraud experts, the perpetrators have stuck to the same basic tactics in each attack. They steal the victim's online banking credentials with the help of malicious software distributed through spam. The intruders then initiate a series of unauthorized bank transfers out of the company's online account in sub-$10,000 chunks to avoid banks' anti-money-laundering reporting requirements. From there, the funds are sent to so-called "money mules," willing or unwitting individuals recruited over the Internet through work-at-home job scams. When the mules pull the cash out of their accounts, they are instructed to wire it (minus a small commission) via services such as MoneyGram and Western Union, typically to organized criminal groups operating in countries
