Posts Tagged ‘cybercrime’

New Zealand businesses fall prey to hackers

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr

Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr

Two New Zealand businesses lost “significant sums of money” after they placed orders with Chinese companies that fell victim to internet hackers, police in New Zealand said recently.

Both companies had good relationships with their Chinese suppliers for many years, paying deposits into international bank accounts for goods which they then  imported into New Zealand.

In both cases, the e-mail accounts of the Chinese suppliers had been hacked, resulting in the Kiwi companies inadvertently rerouting payments to the hackers.

“The New Zealand businesses received an e-mail asking them to transfer their usual deposit into a different bank account. When the businesses replied about why they have been asked to deposit money into an account that differs from the usual one, the companies were confirmed that the directions are correct,” the police said.

“The confirmation e-mail was a fraudulent message that has been sent by hackers who accessed the Chinese e-mail account,” said the police.

The crime had come to light after several weeks when the Chinese suppliers contacted the New Zealand importers to inquire why they had failed to pay their deposits.

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New Zealand businesses warned after major chain hit by phishing scam

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

NetSafe is warning businesses to be alert after a major retail chain was targeted by overseas cyber criminals in a well-planned phishing attack that attempted to convince store staff to install rogue software on their computers.

IT staff at the chain, which NetSafe would not name, said employees at one branch had downloaded malicious software into computers in the branch after being called by an individual claiming to work for the chain.

The caller identified himself as a senior member of the company and directed employees to a fake website that was designed to look like the chain’s official tech support site.

Staff at the store then downloaded a malicious program that tried to take over computers.

The company’s IT staff noticed what was happening and blocked further access to the fake website on all their systems before cleaning up and alerting all stores to the bogus caller, NetSafe’s cyber security programme manager Chris Hails said.

“The effort that has gone into creating a convincing fake website and the use of a real executive’s name is what concerns us,” Hails said.

“The website which delivered the malicious software was designed using the company’s branding, logo and corporate style and the criminals had gone to some effort to register a .co.nz URL which contained the chain’s name.”

Hails said the retail chain had asked Netsafe to keep its identity confidential but wanted others to be aware of the scam.

“Although there were no losses, the company felt there was the potential for people to feel they couldn’t trust them anymore,” he said.

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