100 Suspected Arrested In Phishing Scheme

[Peaches]

Oct 08, 2009 | 12:20 PM

By Kelly Jackson Higgins

DarkReading

The FBI yesterday announced indictments of 100 suspects spanning the U.S. and Turkey who allegedly operated a phishing scheme that stole personal information and money from U.S. bank accounts of thousands of victims.

U.S. authorities in California, Nevada, and North Carolina so far have arrested 33 of 53 defendants named in an indictment by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Egyptian authorities have charged 47 people in the scheme in the first-ever joint cybercrime investigation between Egyptian and U.S. authorities. FBI officials say the charges in the U.S. represent the largest cybercrime investigation to date.

"The sophistication with which Phish Phry defendants operated represents an evolving and troubling paradigm in the way identity theft is now committed," said Keith Bolcar, acting assistant director in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles. "Criminally savvy groups recruit here and abroad to pool tactics and skills necessary to commit organized theft facilitated by the computer, including hacking, fraud, and identity theft, with a common greed and shared willingness to victimize Americans."

The indictment says the Egyptian-based attackers phished bank account numbers and related personal information from an unknown number of bank customers and then hacked into accounts at two banks -- the names of which were not disclosed publicly.

Full story DarkReading - http://www.darkreading.com/security/attack...ttacks/breaches

[sultan_emerr]

Interesting story. It just proves that it always pays to be safe when on the internet.