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Nigerian Scammers Now Employing ‘RATs,’ and Still Evolving


Internet-security Company SecureWorks on August 4, 2016 released fresh details about the cyber miscreants responsible for a growing popular kind of online scam that attacks small firms, while finding the assaults' linkage with a Nigerian group which launched e-mail scams previously too.

Interpol arrested a particular ringleader whose name was "Mike" on August 1, 2016 jointly with Trend Micro another security firm. Then came into the scene 'SecureWorks' that on 4th August published the outcome of one thorough investigation into the activities of one more gang comprising Nigerian nationals.

According to FBI agent Mr. Alwine, several other gangs have played a role and these are based in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The situation is like where one cyber-crime gang launches attack while another is ready to take his place, explains Mr. Alwine.

E-mail scammers that target businesses are hard to catch, one reason being they characteristically manage concealing their Internet Protocol addresses by deploying proxy servers. Moreover, they call themselves by false names while frequently deploy malware capable of putting into disguise while even erase itself for avoiding detection. Americanbanker.com posted this, August 5, 2016.

SecureWorks gave a name to the scammer as Mr. X and posted one portrait when he was working in digital field during February last. From the screenshots, it was felt that Mr. X's company containing 40 people had made $6m out of the scam. And while SecureWorks wouldn't identify Mr. X, security researcher 'James Bettke,' also working for SecureWorks stated that the screenshots showed one middle-aged, married, and graduate man surrounded with school going kids routinely going to churches.

This gang utilizes commodity RATs, initials for Remote Access Trojans sent out in bulk to victims through e-mail spam. The Trojan contaminates target PCs, compromises them, and garners intelligence.

SecureWorks researchers further provide one tool known as Pdfexpose that spots wire-to-wire fraud via searching to find redacted text within invoices in PDF file format. In the meantime, security investigators are probing other likewise wire-to-wire fraudsters. Here malware research director Joe Stewart at SecureWorks says this simply grazes on other scams that his organization is seeking to disable.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/10/2016

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