14 DAY TRIAL // The Italian authorities managed to stop a major phishing attempt that affected the postal service owned by the Government that works with residents' financial information. Just like any other phishing attempts, the attackers were trying to lure users to a fake website of Poste Italliene in order to require them to disclose their private information. This action was enhanced by a powerful spam campaign initiated by 18 Italian citizens and 8 foreign persons, security company Sophos reported.
According to the same source, the leader of the gang tried to escape 12 hours before the Military Financial Police arrested him. The hacker of the group, a 22-year-old man, said to the Italian police that they were trying to steal users' financial information through the fake website. After the details were stolen, they transferred the money to numerous PostePay accounts.
"The Italian authorities should be applauded for cracking down on illegal activity like this. Internet criminals can use technology to hide their identities, and it can often be a complex web for the police to untangle," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Phishing and identity theft are global problems, and countries need to work more closely with each other to bring cybercriminals to justice. These arrests underline the growing organized nature of international identity theft gangs, but there are many other phishers still at large."
The Italian authorities discovered an impressive amount of equipment in several Italian locations, all of it being used for the malicious attacks. Mobile phones, fake documents, computers and a lot of credit cards were all captured by the police. It seems like some of the credit cards were used in Italian casinos, a wrong move made by the hackers that helped the authorities find and identify the Italian and the Eastern Europe suspects that conducted the phishing attacks.