Software utilities

Following on from my previous post about hackers, this is more like it. In the US, 38 spammers and hackers were charged on 65 counts this past Monday for taking part in a large scamming ring in which social security numbers, credit card details and other personal information were siphoned off unsuspecting people and financial institutions.

The ring’s base was in Romania, with rackets operating internationally including the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan.

Similar to what hackers got up to in the last post, these hackers were sending emails with attachments which, when opened, downloaded spyware. The spyware would then read personal information and forward it on to a third party.

Another thing they’d apparently do was pretend to be a financial institution such as Wells Fargo, Citibank or Paypal. I’m sure we’ve all had one of those types of spammy emails, haven’t we? Typical scenario: you receive an email telling you that your Paypal account has been suspended and that to reactivate it, you need to click on a link. Now, some people instantly panic and click on the link – some people don’t.

With this one scam racket alone, thousands of Americans and hundreds of financial bodies were targeted. From their Romanian base, credit and debit card details, once obtained, were sent to their US-based scam cell and copied onto magnetic cards which could be used to withdraw funds from poor Mr X’s bank account (whom, I suspect, would be oblivious to what was going on ’til it was too late).

The article I read doesn’t mention how much they scammed off people but with the amount of people that were involved in the operation, it’s bound to be a lot. I mean, why would any of them get involved if there wasn’t the promise of a significant amount of money?