Google and Facebook scammed for millions

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Olivia Storey

In 2013, Evaldas Rimasauskas, from Lithuania, deceived two major global tech companies, swindling them out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Justice Department has recently announced the arrest of Evaldas Rimasauskas after targeted attacks on Facebook and Google.

Rimasauskas instigated scams involving phishing emails, invoices and corporate stamps, in which they were forged to impersonate a large Asian based manufacturer that Facebook and Google regularly did business with.

The aim was to get the firms to pay for tech supplies, and unfortunately, over a two-year span, Rimasauskas managed to convince the accounting departments to transfer tens of millions of dollars. By the time it was realised what had been going on, he had stolen over $100 million hidden in bank accounts across Eastern Europe.

Mark James, ESET IT Security Specialist, discusses cyber security attacks on businesses.

“It’s a fact in today’s digital world that there is always someone trying to scam you, we fight it, we delete it, we even highlight it and use it to teach others what to look out for, but there is one thing humans are good at and that’s adapting.

“Most spam or phishing attacks end up a failure, but that’s the nature of these types of attacks they don’t all have to succeed.

“For us to be safe we have to detect or block 100% of those attempts, but they only need to get one right.

“If someone puts their mind to doing something there is a good chance they will succeed, whether that’s education, business or foul deeds.

“The good thing about the latter is most of the time people get caught.

“This particular plan involved forging email addresses, invoices, and corporate stamps in order to trick some big companies into believing they are dealing with the “right” company and handing over thousands.

“It just goes to prove that all companies large and small can be scammed.”

 

Do you think having the right software or teaching your staff to know what to look for is more important? Let us know on Twitter @ESETUK.

 

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