Fergie's Tech Blog

Eastern European Cyber Crooks Now Targeting Public & Private Schools

Brian Krebs writes on Security Fix:

A gang of organized cyber criminals that has stolen millions from businesses across the United States over the past month appears to have turned its sights on public schools and universities.

On the morning of Aug. 17, hackers who had broken into computers at the Sanford School District in tiny Sanford, Colorado initiated a batch of bogus transfers out of the school's payroll account. Each of the transfers was kept just below $10,000 to avoid banks' anti-money laundering reporting requirements, and went out to at least 17 different accomplices or "money mules" that the attackers had hired via work-at-home job scams.

A school employee spotted the bogus payments on the morning of the 19th, when the school district learned that $117,000 had been siphoned from its coffers by cyber crooks.

Sanford Superintendent Kevin Edgar said the school successfully reversed two of the transfers totaling $18,000, but that rest of the stolen money remains in limbo.

posted by Fergie @ 9/14/2009 12:38:00 PM