By Kevin Poulsen
Threat Level
Wired.com
October 29, 2009
Bank customers are increasingly being duped into acting as 'money mules'
for hackers, unwittingly laundering cash stolen from business bank accounts, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation warned the nation's financial institutions on Thursday.
Using specialized Trojan horse malware, cybercrooks have been intercepting web-banking credentials from the computers of small and midsize businesses, and then initiating wire transfers to mules around the country. The mules are consumers who've been lured into fake work-at-home scams, in which their employment involves receiving money transfers and then forwarding the funds to Eastern Europe, either directly or through other mules.
The scheme has exploded in the last year, with the FBI estimating losses at $40 million so far, according to a recent story from WashingtonPost.com reporter Brian Krebs, who's been closely following the attacks.
