Security News
An Instagram influencer known as 'Hushpuppi' has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to launder tens of millions of USD from business email compromise scams and various cyber schemes. The 40-year-old Nigerian's real name is Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, and was ordered to pay restitution of $1,732,841 to two confirmed victims, a law firm in the U.S. and a businessperson in Qatar.
A one-time Apple employee working as a buyer within the iGiant's supply chain department has pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud charges spanning multiple years, ultimately costing the company $17 million. According to the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, Prasad admitted in a written statement that he began to defraud Apple as early as 2011 by "Accepting kickbacks, inflating invoices, stealing parts, and causing Apple to pay for items and services never received."
Interpol arrested 75 suspected members of the Black Axe West African crime syndicate, and intercepted over $1 million in various bank accounts as part of a wide-ranging multi-country operation aimed at thwarting the group's cyber-fraud efforts that fund its criminal operations. According to the international police agency, Operation Jackal spanned 14 countries on four continents targeting Black Axe and related crime groups in the region.
eCommerce fraud to merchants to exceed $48 billion / eCommerce merchants must step up their fraud prevention strategies. A Juniper Research study found that the total cost of eCommerce fraud to merchants will exceed $48 billion globally in 2023, from just over $41 billion in 2022.
On June 8, 2020, an individual claiming to be billionaire film producer and philanthropist Sidney Kimmel contacted brokerage Charles Schwab by phone and stated that he had uploaded a wire disbursement form using the service's secure email service. All the while the alleged mastermind, Arthur Lee Cofield Jr, was incarcerated in a maximum security prison in Butts County, Georgia, according to the government.
The Australian Federal Police announced today the launch of Operation Guardian to ensure that more than 10,000 customers who had their info leaked in the Optus data breach will get priority protection against fraud attempts. Throughout Operation Guardian, JPC3 members can use full and collective legislative powers and investigative and intelligence capabilities of all Australian policing jurisdictions to help boost the breach victims' protection against fraudsters.
As many as 75 apps on Google Play and 10 on Apple App Store have been discovered engaging in ad fraud as part of an ongoing campaign that commenced in 2019. Prior to their removal from the app storefronts, the apps had been collectively installed more than 13 million times.
A massive operation that has reportedly siphoned millions of USD from credit cards since its launch in 2019 has been exposed and is considered responsible for losses for tens of thousands of victims. The site operators, thought to originate from Russia, operate an extensive network of bogus dating and customer support websites and use them to charge credit cards bought on the dark web.
Phones, of course, can be made inaccessible with the use of passwords and face or fingerprint unlocking. Once they have the phone and the card, they register the card on the relevant bank's app on their own phone or computer.
Microsoft said it's tracking an ongoing large-scale click fraud campaign targeting gamers by means of stealthily deployed browser extensions on compromised systems. "[The] attackers monetize clicks generated by a browser node-webkit or malicious browser extension secretly installed on devices," Microsoft Security Intelligence said in a sequence of tweets over the weekend.