FBI charged nearly 100 people in the U.S. and Egypt as part of one of the largest cyber fraud phishing investigations ever.
The people charged in this phishing targeted U.S. banks and victimized hundreds of account holders by stealing their financial info and used it to transfer approx. $1.5 million to fake accounts under their control.
More than 50 people in California, Nevada, and North Carolina, nearly 50 Egyptian people have been charged with crimes including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, computer fraud, money cleaning and exacerbated identity theft.
The Director of FBI says that FBI is both law enforcement and national security agency to address every angle of a cyber case. It’s is critical also, because what may start as criminal investigation may lead to national security threat. When FBI begins with a cyber investigation, they do not know whether they are dealing with a spy, company insider, or an organized criminal group.
In this case (Operation Phish Phry), money seems to be the main motive. But you never know-sometimes initially things look like an ordinary phishing scam which may be an attempt by a terrorist group to raise funding for an operation.
But, cyber crime hardly hits a normal person unless and until it hits him individually. In any case, every personal, academic, corporate, and government network plays major role in national security.
