This story is not as dramatic as the FBI managed to reverse the tens of thousands of individual Bitcoin (BTC) transactions used in global online scams to deceive tens of thousands of individual and vulnerable victims…
…But it is still spectacular, because the stolen but recovered amount is 3,879.16 Bitcoin, which is worth 189,568,730.46 USD at the exchange rate quoted by an online source this afternoon. (The rate may change; transaction fees may be charged; your mileage may vary.)
The victim in this case was Sony Life Insurance Company (yes, That Sony), allegedly Cheated this huge sum of money In a bold internal scam, the scam was apparently carried out by an employee.
America Ministry of Justice Alleged that a certain Mr. Rei Ishii implemented the classic “transfer funds to other accounts” scam.
This is related to external cybercriminals trying to Commercial email compromise (BEC).
By paying close attention to internal emails-scammers really work hard to hack high-level accounts, such as CEO or CFO accounts, which is why BEC is often called CEO fraud – And choose the right time to intervene to change the description of the payment details…
…These criminals usually escape hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars in losses. What they do is not only a typical cyber security breach, but also a confidence technique in social engineering.
taller and taller
In some cases, the amount is much higher: the notorious extreme case is the so-called Bank Robbery in Bangladesh (Technically speaking, BRR is not a robbery at all, because there is no physical violence, no sticking, and no big bags of cash involved) as early as 2016.
The scammer apparently managed to initiate a false transaction totaling more than 1 billion U.S. dollars and escaped at a price of slightly more than 100 million U.S. dollars, although the 850 million U.S. dollars was never transferred, which is said to be due to a spelling error in the pricing process. To.
(Maybe overwhelmed or over-excited about the prospect of contacting all these lovely people fundsAnd think about how much pleasure They are about to make a profit, and the scammer managed to enter FUND-ation instead of FOUND-ation, which caused an alarm. )
It is conceivable that if this is something that an outsider can do when accessing the company’s email stream (although the BBR cyber robbery may involve insider assistance), then as long as there is enough preparation time, plus a determined insider may be able to do it A sufficiently reckless way to get things.
It is said that Ishii is the kind of adventurer who transferred the $154 million that should have been transferred within the company to the account he set up in California.
According to the FBI, he then started what you might call cashing out by converting the funds into the aforementioned Bitcoin stash.
However, cashing out so many cryptocurrencies into conventional funds is not as easy or fast as you might think, and multi-departmental and multi-country law enforcement intervention will soon be launched.
Ishii has been arrested and charged in Japan. At least one group including the FBI, Sony, Citibank, Japan National Police Agency, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Japanese Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating emerging crimes (JPEC).
This led to the restoration of the private encryption keys needed to “own” and transfer the stolen cryptocurrency, and announcing a lawsuit in the United States to ensure that the funds are formally frozen until they can be returned to the rightful owner, Sony.
what happened?
How to recover the password of the Bitcoin wallet, we don’t know.
Ishii may just decide to plead guilty, hoping to be treated more leniently, or after careful forensic analysis of the data and equipment available to investigators, may have recovered the encryption key, or…
…He might use his cat’s name as a password.
At this point, all we know is what we don’t know yet. The Ministry of Justice concluded:
The FBI continues to investigate suspected crimes.
Nevertheless, the theft and recovery of close to 4000 BTC is already a good result!
Learn more about business email compromise
And how to avoid
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