Nigerian Scammers Infect Themselves With Own Malware, Reveal New Fraud Scheme

"A pair of security researchers recently uncovered a Nigerian scammer ring that they say operates a new kind of attack...after a few of its members accidentally infected themselves with their own malware," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Over the past several months, they've watched from a virtual front row seat as members used this technique to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from small and medium-sized businesses worldwide." Wave723 writes: Nigerian scammers are becoming more sophisticated, moving on from former 'spoofing' attacks in which they impersonated a CEO's email from an external account. Now, they've begun to infiltrate employee email accounts to monitor financial transactions and slip in their own routing and account info...The researchers estimate this particular ring of criminals earns about US $3 million from the scheme.
After they infected their own system, the scammers' malware uploaded screenshots and all of their keystrokes to an open web database, including their training sessions for future scammers and the re-routing of a $400,000 payment. Yet the scammers actually "appear to be 'family men' in their late 20s to 40s who are well-respected, church-going figures in their communities," according to the article. SecureWorks malware researcher Joe Stewart says the scammers are "increasing the economic potential of the region they're living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this."

Makes sense

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Joe Stewart says the scammers are "increasing the economic potential of the region they're living in by doing this, and I think they feel somewhat of a duty to do this."

Why wouldn't they? I mean, they're not even part of the society they're stealing/scamming from. It's historically not been hard for one government to convince its citizens to go loot/pillage that area run by the wrong government

Re:

[pslytely psycho]

An excellent point.

And no bloodshed, don't even have to leave the house.
I hearby dub this era:
The Golden Age of Pillaging.
Or, The GAP I suppose....
Uh, maybe not, I don't want the trademark or copyright police on me...(;

Never have so few, ripped off so many, with so little effort.

Re:Makes sense

[SuricouRaven]

There is also what you might call the 'Robin Hood' effect. When a perceived inequality in wealth exists, those on the bottom feel justified in stealing from those on the top - and on an international level, there's a very big difference between Nigerian middle class and the US and European businesses they target.

Re:

[thunderclap]

No. Its due to a) the fact the system is so broken even hollywood falls afoul of it.

b) Theaters are no longer a place watch a good movie.

C) Time constrants.

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

Yep. The pirates look at the studios raking in the cash, breaking their own records every year, and at the ridiculously wealthy lifestyles lived by those who make it to the top of the industry - and there goes any sympathy.

The studios try to fix this by painting a picture of more sympathetic people - the working-class camera operators and editors who are hurt by piracy. But that just makes them look dishonest, when their own numbers point to a booming industry and there seems to be plenty of money available

Re:

[lucm]

Have you been to Nigeria? The middle class over there is pretty quick to exploit the poor.

This kind of scam is nothing like Robin Hood, it's all a bunch of Prince John wannabes.

Re:

[John Hughes]

The Untied States with crude oil!

Re:

[thunderclap]

So THIS is why we are constantly in the Middle east?

"well-respected, church-going figures"

[TeknoHog]

Is there supposed to be a correlation between these two things? I'm not sure, though I do go to the Church of Discordia quite regularly.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Actually, yes.

Monetary scams are common in low income developing nations with poor education, where susceptible people invest in pyramid schemes run by 'honest' folk who would never defraud them because of their 'good' character and reputation within the community.

https://minerva-access.unimelb... [unimelb.edu.au]

Re:

[mark-t]

You realize, of course, that the perception that pedophilia is running rampant in churches because of previous reports that made the problem well known is caused by a psychological phenomenon where such reports inadvertently create the impression that the problem they describe is far more widespread than was actually reported because of the sensationalism in the reporting.

I'm not saying that pedophilia isn't bad, and I certainly don't excuse some church's previous attempts to actively cover it up within

Re:

[sjames]

Keep in mind, that list covers the entire world, 60 years time, and includes unproven allegations.

I doubt the accuracy of the 5% figure. I read that the Earth is flat.

Re:

[mark-t]

The 5% figure assumes that about one out of every ten priests who are doing this will actually get publicized. With many hundreds of thousands of catholic priests worldwide, The actual number of clergy who had such illicit behaviour exposed publicly is actually far less than one percent. While there is some statistical validity to assuming that only a minority of cases get reported, this does not extend to how many people might actually be engaging in illicit practices... It only limits the number of repo

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there supposed to be a correlation between these two things?

Only where going to church is considered respectable.

Nuke 'em

[ITRambo]

These people are simply criminals that should be sought out and arrested. I don't fall for the BS that their crimes help the local community. Assholes, plain and simple.

Re:

[nukenerd]

These people are simply criminals that should be sought out and arrested.

You are the first post that has raised the suggestion that anyone might excuse them. All criminals feel self-justified.

Phone Sales

[Jim Sadler]

These people are counting on exactly what telephone scam artists counted on for decades. First no phone calls were ever made within your own state. That kept local law enforcement out of the loop. Further, the cop shops took bribes and it was explained to them that a lot of money would be in the town as the workers were well paid. The effect was that state and local laws enforcement only touched about 1% of the phone rooms no matter how crooked they were and they were and they were all crooked, although the employees often could not see how corrupt their employers were. So how about federal cops making arrests? Last year the DOJ prosecuted 13 companies for phone sales fraud. they went after only companies in which huge fines could be assessed. I will bet that at least 30,000 phone sales outfits exist in Florida alone. The message that phone sales people get is that it is open season on the public. Here is another gimmick : The sales man makes the call and gets a yes from the target. Then he tells you to hang on as he transfers you to the verification department so your package gets out to you as soon as possible. When he transfers you it is to another state entirely. So if you manage to file an expensive law suit and drag them into court you will suddenly discover that the sale took place in another place in which the verification department took your charge card number . that means you will have to start the suit over gain in another state and by the time it comes to trial most sales will not allow the case to be heard. I even saw this in a gas station accident. The victim sued the gas station as the mechanic ran over them while working on a car. When it finally got to court the gas station owner remarked he did not know why he was being sued as the repair bay was another company entirely. the time tolled before the victim could get back into the court system.

Re:

[unixisc]

Like they say in their letters

Simple solution

[argStyopa]

Their theft should be publicized, and the bounty paid by the US gov't for their head = 1/10 that amount stolen.

Sound draconian? The fact is that if we had a ring of thieves in this country* that were routinely scamming hundreds of thousands from people, we would be mobilizing at least scores of millions of dollars of FBI assets to put them down - either arrested or killed. As we do not have such resources, we could rely on their partners amorality and greed to kill each other off.

*not called "congress" or

Nigerian method of rerouting transactions?

[khz6955]

"the SecureWorks team has witnessed the thieves deploy this method to reroute transactions averaging between US $30,000 and $60,000 .. In one case, the attackers rerouted a $400,000 payment from a U.S. chemical company to its Indian supplier."

None of this would be financially viable if not for the corrupt local banking system.

Re:

[vandamme]

Everything from Sicily south is corrupt.