Tag: financial scam
FBI Takes Down Crypto-Laundering Scam
The line between cybercrime and plain old-fashioned fraud has become yet more blurred following the sentencing of international virtual currency vendor Anurag Pramod Murarka to 121 months in prison for his involvement in a classic money laundering operation that he advertised on Darknet marketplaces. According to recently unsealed court documents, Murarka operated an international money laundering business from April 2021 until September 29, 2023. Murarka was able to operate out of India and serviced shady clients in the United States through an intricate Indian “hawala” money transferring system and the use of the US Postal Service as his “unwitting partner in transferring ill-begotten funds.” The original Hawala scam was an Indian political and financial scandal involving illicit payments allegedly sent by politicians through a network of four Hawala brokers that implicated some of the country's leading politicians.
Fake job offer scams gather pace
The New Year has begun with further news of a particularly cynical fraud campaign aimed at jobseekers. Lucrative-seeming fake job offers are being sent by email to individuals working in targeted organizations and in companies operating in critical industries. This month, cybersecurity company Crowdstrike has identified an email phishing campaign exploiting its recruitment branding to deliver malware disguised as an "employee CRM application." The fake email impersonates Crowdstrike recruitment and directs recipients who are curious about the personalized job offer to a malicious website. But Crowdstrike also reports that the cybersecurity company is also aware of a number of other fake job offer scams currently taking place.
$1bn Korean bust is tip of SE Asian cybercrime iceberg
Authorities in Korea and Beijing dismantled a sprawling voice phishing syndicate responsible for financial losses totaling US$ 1.1 billion. But South-East Asian observers believe this to be only the tip of an impenetrable iceberg of cybercrime in South-East Asia that is rapidly starting spread around the globe. The Korean bust was part of an Interpol-co-ordinated global operation involving law enforcement from 40 countries, territories, and regions and has ended with the arrest of over 5,500 financial crime suspects and the seizure of more than US$400 million in virtual assets and government-backed currencies.
TeaBot banking malware infects 70k smartphones
TeaBot, a highly sophisticated type of malware, is increasingly infecting Android smartphones. Cybersecurity firm Zscaler’s ThreatLabz reported a sharp rise in malicious activity leveraging TeaBot this week. TeaBot, also known as “Anatsa,” is designed to impersonate seemingly harmless applications such as PDF and WR code readers. Once installed on an Android smartphone, it acts as a Trojan horse containing numerous financial scams. “[TeaBot] is a known Android banking malware that targets applications from over 650 financial institutions, primarily in Europe. We observed Anatsa actively targeting banking applications in the US and UK. However, recent observations indicate that threat actors have expanded their targets to include banking applications in Germany, Spain, Finland, South Korea, and Singapore,” explains Zscaler ThreatLabz.