Austrian Firm Fires CEO After $56-million Cyber Scam
Austrian aircraft parts maker FACC said Wednesday that it has fired its
chief executive of 17 years after cyber criminals stole
some 50 million euros ($55.7 million) in a so-called "fake
president" scam.
FACC, whose customers include Airbus, Boeing and
Rolls-Royce, said that the its supervisory board sacked Walter Stephan with
immediate effect after he "severely violated his duties".
Press reports said that in January a FACC employee wired
around 50 million euros, equivalent to almost 10 percent of annual revenues,
after receiving emailed instructions from someone posing as Stephan.
… The company said
Wednesday that the scam, also known as "bogus
boss" or "CEO fraud" and increasingly popular with
sophisticated organized criminals, cost it 41.9 million euros in its 2015/16
business year.
It has managed to claw back 10.9 million euros, it said,
but still posted a pretax loss of 23.4 million euros. In February the company also
sacked its finance chief because of the slip-up.
There was no suggestion that either executive was involved
in the scam.
(Related) The latest Class Action fad?
So here’s another case where employees are suing their
employer after their W-2 data was phished. I wonder how many more lawsuits like this we
may see, keeping in mind that I’ve listed over 120 entities whose employees had
their W-2 data phished.
Joe Robertson reports:
A Rockhurst University employee
hopes to represent some 1,200 school staffers in seeking damages for a data
breach last month.
Someone duped university staff
into supplying information on IRS W-2 forms, including Social Security
numbers, in an act of fraud April 4.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in
Jackson County Circuit Court by Alexandria Stobbe said the university was
willful and reckless in exposing the personal information in “flagrant
disregard” for the employees’ rights to privacy and property.
Read more on Kansas City
Star.
Could these be the guys who hit Japanese ATMs?
On 18 May 2016, the French Gendarmerie of Pau[1],
in close cooperation with the Investigative Unit of the Italian State Police of
Imperia[2] and Europol, disrupted an international criminal group
responsible for large-scale ATM skimming and money laundering. Composed mainly of French-Italian nationals,
the criminal network used sophisticated ATM skimming devices which allowed them
to compromise ATMs and perform
fraudulent withdrawals outside the EU. Estimated losses incurred by the criminals’
activities amount to more than half a million euros.
This operation resulted in multiple house searches and the
final arrest of nine individuals in France. Micro camera bars, card readers,
magnetic strip readers and writers, computers, phones and flash drives, two
hand guns, five vehicles, as well as thousands of plastic cards ready to be
encoded, were seized in several locations between France and Italy as part of
this operation.
The primary modus operandi of the criminals was to harvest
financial data from ATMs in different areas of France. The compromised card data, which was used to
create fake payment cards, was stored on a cloud server managed by the members
of the criminal organisation. These fake
cards were used to withdraw large amounts of cash from ATMs outside the
European Union (Asia and the US).
Europol’s
European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) initiated the case early this year
and supported the involved law enforcement authorities in their efforts to
identify the suspects. Operational
meetings were held at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague and EC3 provided
analytical and forensic support throughout the investigation including the
deployment of a mobile office and a forensic expert during the final action day
to assist the French authorities.
In addition, Europol’s information and analysis systems
were used to exchange and cross-check intelligence received from EU Member
States and non-EU countries with which Europol has operational agreements.
[1] Section de Recherches de Pau.
[2] Squadra Mobile della Questura di Imperia.
[2] Squadra Mobile della Questura di Imperia.
SOURCE: Europol
This should make future clashes interesting. (Something for my Computer Security classes)
Bad News, FBI: Apple Hires Security Pro Jon Callas
If the FBI was hoping Apple CEO Tim Cook was all talk when
he said his company is digging in its heels to protect user privacy, it's time
to put on the disappointed face because Jon Callas is back on the payroll. His credentials in the security and privacy
world make him a strong asset for Apple—just as he was when he previously
worked for the company—and should have the FBI very worried about how far it'll
be able to hack into future iPhones and Macs.
Mr. Callas rejoined Apple in May, according
to Reuters, although the company isn't saying which projects he'll be working
on. Considering his history and skills,
it's a safe bet it'll be security and encryption-related.
This isn't the first security related hire for Apple since
its standoff with the FBI. George Stathakopoulos joined
the company in March and is tasked with protecting customer and corporate
data, and it's a safe bet other experts have come on board to help shore up iOS
and OS X security.
Should law enforcement be banned from using public
information that any teenager can access, or is it the tool that makes it simple
that causes concern? Can I get a copy
for my students?
Joe Cadillic is working on a series of posts. I was going to wait to post the whole series,
but I’ve decided to go ahead and post something about the first one now,
because I don’t think the topic’s gotten enough attention.
Joe writes:
Thanks to Purdue University and
Homeland Security, police can now access public CCTV cameras anywhere.
Purdue researchers have developed
a prototype system called ‘Visual Analytics for
Command, Control and Interoperability Environments‘ (VACCINE) which allows law
enforcement to tap into thousands of CCTV cameras. This means police can spy on you in parking
garages, college campuses, national parks, highways etc., no place is safe from
Big Brother.
VACCINE allows police to spy on
millions of images of citizens daily.
Read more of Part 1 on MassPrivateI.
A new legal specialty?
Tech woes stymie jury in Oracle case aginst Google
As if the jury deciding the Oracle v. Google trial didn't have enough on its plate already.
Deliberations were interrupted Tuesday when the 10-member
panel ran into technical problems trying to review evidence from the case given
to them on a PC.
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