Security News
A U.K. citizen who took part in the massive July 2020 hack of Twitter has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. Joseph James O'Connor, 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a little over a month after he pleaded guilty to the criminal schemes. The infamous Twitter breach allowed the defendant and his co-conspirators to obtain unauthorized access to backend tools used by Twitter, abusing them to hijack 130 popular accounts to perpetrate a crypto scam that netted them about $120,000 in illegal profits.
The agency said there has been an "Uptick" in reports since April of deepfakes being used in sextortion scams, with the images or videos being shared online to harass the victims with demands for money, gift cards, or other payments. In the advisory, the FBI noted the rapid advancements in AI technologies and increased availability of tools that allow creation of deepfake material.
30% of adults have fallen victim or know someone who has fallen victim to an online scam while trying to save money when booking travel, according to McAfee. Online travel scams can take many forms, with the research finding 14% of all adults have been tricked into making payments through fraudulent platforms and 18% have had their identity stolen when booking online.
A U.K. national responsible for his role as the administrator of the now-defunct iSpoof online phone number spoofing service has been sentenced to 13 years and 4 months in prison. He pleaded guilty last month to a number of cyber offenses, including facilitating fraud and possessing and transferring criminal property.
Phishing scams pose an escalating danger as cybercriminals employ increasingly sophisticated techniques, rendering their detection and prevention more challenging. In this Help Net Security video, Abhilash Garimella, Head of Research at Bolster, talks about the evolution of phishing and scam websites in 2023.
KuCoin's Twitter account was hacked, allowing attackers to promote a fake giveaway scam that led to the theft of over $22.6K in cryptocurrency. While the account was hacked for only 45 minutes, the crypto exchange says it was enough time for its followers to send 22 Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions, allowing the hackers to steal $22,600.
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission says Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, an 80% increase over the total losses recorded in 2021. Most of the losses concern investment scams, which accounted for $1.5 billion, followed by remote access scams that resulted in losses of $229 million, and payment redirection scams that cost victims another $224 million.
A suspected Nigerian fraudster is scheduled to appear in court Friday for his alleged role in a $6 million plot to scam businesses via email. Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 29, is the first of three Nigerian men to have been extradited from Canada to the US after a federal grand jury charged the trio on seven counts including money laundering and wire fraud for their alleged roles in a scheme to defraud victims out of millions of dollars.
The illicit market for crypto giveaway scams has expanded, offering various services to facilitate fraudulent activity. The proliferation of fake crypto giveaways can be attributed to the increased availability of tools for scammers, even those with limited technical skills.
The US Department of Justice has seized cryptocurrency worth about $112 million from accounts linked to so-called pig butchering investment scams. Judges in Arizona, California and Idaho authorized seizure warrants for six virtual currency accounts that prosecutors say were used to launder proceeds of the various frauds that cost victims millions of dollars after they were socially engineered into investing their savings in dodgy digicash schemes.