We’ve mentioned this before: When hackers look for targets to carry out their scams, it’s always easier for them to target vulnerable populations. For example, job seekers responding to a fake, enticing ad. The victims were calling this time bank debt and perhaps, having been repeatedly rejected, they let their guard down in the face of a group of hackers’ plans.
Cybersecurity company CloudSEK discovered an operation it claimed was coming chinese pirates. First they created a fifty fake Android apps by copying real Indian banks. They obviously weren’t there game store, but can be downloaded directly from alternative stores and various websites. After that, it’s a matter of convincing victims to download the apps. Solution ? A. Aggressive advertising campaign on social networkspromising Fast loans at an extremely attractive rate.
Hackers stole $44,000 using fake Android banking apps
The person opens the application, thinking that he is dealing with a real banking institution, and provides his personal information: name, address, phone number, current bank account, etc. And of course, they must pay the application fee to verify their credit. Usually 5% of the amount requested. Once this is done the promised money will not arrive and the app will no longer work. In total, pirate group managed to raise $44,000.
The feature of this scam is this: Stolen funds are quickly transferred from India to Chinawhere lack of control makes the job much harder tracking stolen money. For this, hackers used payment gateways in China as well as other countries such as Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Vietnam. “These gateways provide a convenient way to move funds out of India using sophisticated techniques that blur jurisdictional boundaries, making it difficult to track and seize money,” says Sparsh Kulshrestha, security analyst at CloudSEK.
Source : TechRadar
