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| Phishers steal money and confidential data from
internet users. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have welcomed
the news that German authorities have arrested members of a
suspected international phishing gang.
Germany's Federal Crime Office (known as the BKA) announced on its website,
that seven men aged between 21 and 47 years old, have been arrested
in connection with a plot to plunder the bank accounts of online
surfers.
The BKA claims that they stopped the German-Lithuanian gang as
they were about to launch their criminal activity by spamming
phishing emails and distributing Trojan horses that would have
stolen passwords and TANs (single-use TransAction Numbers) from
innocent online bankers.
Police officers, who have been investigating the case since
December 2005, searched six flats in Frankfurt, Wetzlar, Gießen,
Stauffenberg, Lich and Allendorf, in their hunt for evidence.
According to the BKA the gang opened a plethora of bank accounts
using faked names and addresses, and planned to transfer stolen
money to Eastern Europe.
"The German police should be applauded for arresting these men
before the alleged criminal plot was put into action," said
Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant for Sophos. "The potential rewards for
internet crime are high, and we are seeing organized international
gangs becoming more sophisticated in the ways in which they attempt
to steal information from online banking users. Computer crime
authorities around the world need to work closely with each other
to break apart these criminal gangs and bring them to justice."
Sophos experts encourage all computer users to ensure they have
the proper defenses in place to minimize the chances of attack.
"All computer users should be running an up-to-date anti-virus
as well as protecting their PC with a firewall. This, combined with
the safe computing practice of exercising caution over what you
choose to run on your computer, can dramatically reduce the risks,"
continued Cluley.
Sophos recommends companies protect their email with a consolidated solution to thwart the virus and spam
threats and secure their desktops and servers with automatically
updated anti-virus protection.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.