One of the largest phishing scams ever was recently discovered and disbanded at the Swedish bank Nordea. In a scam that lasted over a year, the criminals managed to sneak away over $1.1 Million. Using standard phishing tactics, such as sending emails with infected attachments, around 250 customers of the bank ended up being infected, with 121 people suspected of being behind the scenes pushing the scam forward. The scammers had servers that were traced back to Russia and the U.S., and overall is being blamed on both unprepared victims and Russian organized crime:
It was also said that attacked customers did not have anti-virus software on their computers. Security officials claim Russian organized criminals are responsible for the heist, with no less than 121 people suspected to be involved. Even more damning, Swedish police traced computer servers first in the U.S. and then to Russia.
Due to the minute nature of most of the transactions involved, it went largely undetected for a long time. The war on spyware and malware extends much further than just personal annoyance, as stories like this sometimes reveal. Every day, people lose bank accounts and credit card numbers to criminals such as these, so the fight must go on.