Cyber Criminals Steal Nearly $400,000 Using Trojan

A small California-based real estate company became a target of cyber criminals who used illegal means and transferred nearly $400,000 out of the company's current account into the criminals' bank accounts spread all over the world, as reported by Help Net Security on June 29, 2010.

Actually, the PC hackers invaded the network at Village View Escrow Inc. situated in Redondo Beach during March 2010 and continuously sent 26 wire transfers in the name of 20 persons scattered worldwide who weren't legally associated with the company.

It is reported that the company's owner 'Michelle Marisco' got an e-mail containing a harmless file (Trojan). When she ran the file, a password-stealing program got installed, which contaminated the PC.

Describing the e-mail, Marisco stated that it appeared as a message from the UPS. The e-mail was talking about some misplaced packet sent by her, and then asking her to examine an invoice attached with it, as reported by Help Net Security on June 29, 2010.

At the time Marisco viewed the file, there was apparently no significant change. She thought that possibly her own PC had some fault. Therefore, she sent over the message to her secretary's e-mail inbox, whose job it was to approve transfers.

Indeed, the invoice was a Trojan which allowed the thieves to execute the hack and drop an information-stealing malware on both Marisco's and her secretary's PCs respectively.

The fraudsters even deactivated that feature which ensured that the accountholder got an e-mail notification whenever wire transfers were made from the firm's bank account. Naturally, the dubious transfers went out without drawing attention for some time.

In addition, Marisco stated that denying any involvement in the incident, her bank informed that the fraudsters accessed the account through the online address of her firm. This they accomplished with the Trojan that they'd installed for establishing a connection with her computer.

Commenting on the problem, security researchers stated that the incidence of Village View Escrow demonstrated that small sized enterprises were often becoming targets of online crooks in Internet banking frauds.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 7/7/2010