Police Raids to Arrest Phishers

The phishing attacks are extremely dangerous for all of us because they are often created to steal our financial or bank account information directly from our computer. How does a phishing attempt work? It is often based on a perfect copy for a well known site, such as a bank or other financial organization's page. The phishers sends a mail to all the clients of a certain firm and require them to re-enter their information including name, account number, password and other details using a link included in the message. Generally, the link redirects the user to the phishing site that looks exactly as the original page so the user is tricked to enter his account information.

At this time, there are several solutions that sustain they are able to detect and block phishing attempts but some of them are quite useless. Although it is regarded as an illegal activity, phishing tends to become and easy way to earn money by tricking users into providing you their financial data. Authorities from all around the world are fighting to identify and arrest phishers, the latest case being reported in Turkey.

It seems that the police made numerous raids at the same time to arrest a group of phishers that tried to receive money from multiple bank customers. The police arrested 17 members that were identified through their IP's recorded on the affected computers but it looks like other attackers were located in Russia. The investigation started some months ago, authorities reporting they found fake passports, computer equipment and numerous credit cards.

"According to sources from the Izmir Organized Crime Bureau, this has been one of the largest cybercrime investigations ever carried out in Turkey. The number of victims is as yet unknown, but over the past several weeks the gang managed to withdraw between $330,000 and $500,000 from around a thousand accounts. The gang received details of these accounts from three cybercriminals in Russia, who in turn claimed a 10 % commission from the stolen funds," Viruslist reported.