14 DAY TRIAL // Scammers have tricked representatives of the St Aldhelm’s Academy, a school in Poole, England, into giving them access to the institution’s bank account. The crooks stole £1.1 million ($1.84 million / €1.33 million).
According to Metro, the fraudsters sent a fake email purporting to come from the school’s financial institution. The email instructed the recipient to provide access codes for the school’s bank account.
St Aldhelm’s finance staff complied and sent the cybercrooks the information they requested. The school later realized that 10% of the money they had planned to spend on a new building was gone.
The Metropolitan Police, the National Crime Agency and Dorset Police are investigating the incident. A cybercrime group with ties to Eastern Europe is believed to be behind the scheme.
More and more people are being scammed these days online. A woman in New Jersey has recently admitted losing tens of thousands of dollars to a man she had met on the dating site Match.com.
CBS reported that the 59-year-old woman lost part of her retirement savings to the scammer who claimed to be a 60-year-old engineer working in Malaysia. The woman had some doubts, but the con artist convinced her to give him the money.
Internet users should be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true. On the other hand, organizations should put more effort into training staff to make sure they know how to identify cybercriminal attempts.