Safe and Inclusive E‑Society: How Lithuania Is Bracing for AI‑Driven Cyber Fraud

Technologies are evolving fast, reshaping economies, governance, and daily life. Yet, as innovation accelerates, so do digital risks. Technological change is no longer abstract for such a country as Lithuania, as well. From e-signatures to digital health records, the country depends on secure...

Xinbi Telegram Market Tied to $8.4B in Crypto Crime, Romance Scams, North Korea Laundering

A Chinese-language, Telegram-based marketplace called Xinbi Guarantee has facilitated no less than $8.4 billion in transactions since 2022, making it the second major black market to be exposed after HuiOne Guarantee. According to a report published by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, merchant...

JokerOTP Dismantled After 28,000 Phishing Attacks, 2 Arrested

JokerOTP dismantled after 28,000 phishing attacks across 13 countries; UK and Dutch police arrest two suspects linked to £7.5M cyber fraud...

U.S. and Dutch Authorities Dismantle 39 Domains Linked to BEC Fraud Network

U.S. and Dutch law enforcement agencies have announced that they have dismantled 39 domains and their associated servers as part of efforts to disrupt a network of online marketplaces originating from Pakistan. The action, which took place on January 29, 2025, has been codenamed Operation Heart...

Scammer robs homebuyers of life savings in $20 million theft spree

A 33-year-old Nigerian man living in the UK and his co-conspirators defrauded over 400 would-be home buyers in the US. In the initial phase, Babatunde Francis Ayeni and his criminal gang targeted US title companies, real estate agents, and real estate attorneys. Employees of these companies were...

Bitcoin Fog Founder Sentenced to 12 Years for Cryptocurrency Money Laundering

The 36-year-old founder of the Bitcoin Fog cryptocurrency mixer has been sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for facilitating money laundering activities between 2011 and 2021. Roman Sterlingov, a dual Russian-Swedish national, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and operatin...

U.S. and Microsoft Seize 107 Russian Domains in Major Cyber Fraud Crackdown

Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Thursday announced the seizure of 107 internet domains used by state-sponsored threat actors with ties to Russia to facilitate computer fraud and abuse in the country. "The Russian government ran this scheme to steal Americans' sensitive...

Meta Removes 63,000 Instagram Accounts Linked to Nigerian Sextortion Scams

Meta Platforms on Wednesday said it took steps to remove around 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria that were found to target people with financial sextortion scams. "These included a smaller coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts that we were able to link to a group of around 20...

British Hacker Charged for Operating "The Real Deal" Dark Web Marketplace

A 34-year-old U.K. national has been arraigned in the U.S. for operating a dark web marketplace called The Real Deal that specialized in the sales of hacking tools and stolen login credentials. Daniel Kaye, who went by a litany of pseudonyms Popopret, Bestbuy, UserL0ser, and Spdrman, has been...

Interpol Nabs 3 Nigerian Scammers Behind Malware-based Attacks

Interpol on Monday announced the arrest of three suspected global scammers in Nigeria for using remote access trojans RATs such as Agent Tesla to facilitate malware-enabled cyber fraud. "The men are thought to have used the RAT to reroute financial transactions, stealing confidential online...

New U.S. Government Initiative Holds Contractors Accountable for Cybersecurity

The U.S. government on Wednesday announced the formation of a new Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative that aims to hold contractors accountable for failing to meet required cybersecurity requirements in order to safeguard public sector information and infrastructure. "For too long, companies have chosen...

Trial Ends in Guilty Verdict for DDoS-for-Hire Boss

A jury in California today reached a guilty verdict in the trial of Matthew Gatrel, a St. Charles, Ill. man charged in 2018 with operating two online services that allowed paying customers to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks against Internet users and websites. Gatrels...

U.S. Charges 6 Russian Intelligence Officers Over Destructive Cyberattacks

The US government on Monday formally charged six Russian intelligence officers for carrying out destructive malware attacks with an aim to disrupt and destabilize other nations and cause monetary losses. The individuals, who work for Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate GRU, ha...

Secret Service Creates Cyber Fraud Task Forces

The U.S. Secret Service has created the Cyber Fraud Task Forces CFTFs, aimed at preventing, detecting and mitigating complex cyber-enabled financial crime – including making arrests and convictions. The CFTF is the result of a formal merging of two of the Secret Service’s existing units into a...

FBI: BEC Scam Losses Almost Double To Reach $1.2 Billion

Business email compromise BEC scams are squeezing more money than ever out of victims, with losses from the attacks almost doubling year-over-year in 2018 to reach $1.2 billion. That’s according to the FBI’s annual Internet Crime Report IC3 for 2018, which records the number of complaints, losses...

Business banking fraud. Keep your eggs in TWO baskets. Here’s why…

This post has a cautionary tale all about spreading your business banking fraud risk. So, does your business have two bank accounts, with different banks? No? Then you would be well advised to do so, or risk being left unable to trade. WHY? Business banking ‘cyber’ fraud is increasingly common; I...

Florida Man Arrested in SIM Swap Conspiracy

Police in Florida have arrested a 25-year-old man accused of being part of a multi-state cyber fraud ring that hijacked mobile phone numbers in online attacks that siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from victims. On July 18, 2018, Pasco County...

FBI: Cyber-Fraud Losses Rise to Reach $1.4B

About 301,580 consumers reported cyber-fraud and malware attacks to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 last year – with reported losses exceeding a whopping $1.4 billion. The year’s haul of reports brings the overall total of complaints since the IC3 began recording such things to 4...

Deleted Facebook Cybercrime Groups Had 300,000 Members

Hours after being alerted by KrebsOnSecurity, Facebook last week deleted almost 120 private discussion groups totaling more than 300,000 members who flagrantly promoted a host of illicit activities on the social media network's platform. The scam groups facilitated a broad spectrum of shady...

Advancing threat protection through industry-leading research

At Trend Micro we’ve been protecting our customers around the world for 30 years. So what’s the secret to staying at the cutting edge of the industry for all this time? By investing significant resources into forward-looking threat research, we’ve been able to anticipate where the black hats are...