Spanish Police Warn Of Phishing Scams As Massive Network Of Cybercriminals Is Busted
Spain News
Published: 12 August 2021 12:57 CET
Spain’s Guardia Civil has dismantled a network of Cybercriminals with links to Spain and is thought to have contained up to 100,000 members.
The organised criminal gang is one of the largest discovered and is thought to have been responsible for large scale online scams including credit card fraud, the spread of malware, identity theft and phishing where users are tricked into sharing their private banking details.
A number of coordinated raids on properties were carried out in Cadiz and Malaga which led to the arrest of 11 people believed to be responsible for around 2,500 online criminal acts.
The Spanish authorities believe at least 300 companies were affected by the organisation's crimes with 42,000 credit cards used by cybercriminals from 47 countries.
The Guardia Civil said the cybercriminal network’s main activity was to obtain user's payment credentials, proceeding to sell the information to other criminals via the DarkWeb - commonly referred to as ‘carding’.
One of the main methods used by the gangs to capture the data was in the impersonation of popular online websites including international banks along with well-known streaming websites and content service companies.
Malware was also a focal point for the individuals. Once installed on the victim's computers, they were able to launch Trojan horse programs such as Trojan Zeus and TinyBanker along with keylogging software. Tools would then be used to launch denial of service attacks (DOS), botnet networks and ransomware.
The criminal organisations also made use of search engines and social media platforms where they ran large scale advertising campaigns targeting specific demographics such as age and location in order to maximise profitability.
It is thought that many of the phishing attempts targeted older citizens, targeting those thought to possess limited technological knowledge or a general vulnerability in the online world.
The group were based around the world including Spain, Chile, the US, Venezuela, Peru, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Morocco.
In light of the news, the Guardia Civil has taken the opportunity to publish advice for the general public so that they can avoid becoming a victim of such crimes.
- Be suspicious of emails that appear to come from known services requesting any form of data that they should already possess. They may claim they need this due to technical problems, security issues with the user’s account or for promotional activities.
- If browsing websites, always take time to review the information provided by the website or store including address, phone numbers, tax address and data along with forms of payment.
- Be suspicious of grammatical errors.
- Hover over hyperlinks and check that they are genuine and correspond to the website.
- Be suspicious of emails from official sites that come from general addresses such as Gmail or Hotmail. A genuine company will always use their own domain for their email address.
If you are concerned or having fallen victim, report it immediately to your banking provider and the Guardia Civil.
Source
https://www.guardiacivil.es/es/prensa/noticias/7942.html
Image Credit: Guardia Civil
