The Spanish National Police have dismantled a cybercriminal group behind a series of scams that led to the theft of data from over four million people.
Law enforcement authorities carried out 16 targeted searches in Madrid, Malaga, Huelva, Alicante and Murcia and arrested 34 members of the group.
The police also seized weapons, four cars , 80,000 euros in cash and computers that hosted the database with the stolen information.
Police said the cybercriminals arrested were carrying out email and SMS phishing attacks and impersonating companies and electricity suppliers to trick their victims.
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In addition, the scammers would call people - parents - and ask them for money, saying that their child needed it because he had a problem or because he had gotten into trouble somewhere.
In other cases, they allegedly exploited the position of an employee at an international technology company to reroute goods to addresses under their control.
According to police, cybercriminals were carrying out a variety of scams.
How did we end up with the arrests?
The investigation into this group began in early 2023 after thousands of complaints were filed that had a common pattern of fraud.
The fraudsters breached the databases of various financial and credit institutions. They stole customer information, but at the same time used their access to the systems to credit amounts of money to customer. They then contacted these customers and told them that they had received a loan in error and that they were required to repay it by following specific instructions.
Victims were directed to phishing websites that resembled banking institutions and entered sensitive information and passwords that could be seen by cybercriminals.
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The profit from these activities came mainly from reselling the stolen data to other cybercriminals .It is estimated that they earned around 3,000,000 euros ($3.2 million).
Police say high-ranking members of the group funneled the proceeds into crypto asset investment platforms to cover their tracks.
Those identified as leaders of the group are already behind bars and police authorities are continuing investigations to identify and arrest other members.
As the country's Interior Minister stated, "the international community cannot remain idle in the face of these attacks on the privacy and trust of citizens."
“Our goal is to eradicate cybercrime and ensure the safety of our citizens online. Any individual who acts to destroy the safety of our fellow citizens will be treated with the appropriate seriousness.“.
How to protect yourself from cybercriminals?
By taking a deep look at this extensive cybercrime system, we need to develop important principles for protecting personal data in the digital world. It is essential to understand that data protection measures do not stop at a strong password.
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In order to reduce the risk of your personal data being breached, we recommend the following steps:
- Choose strong passwords: Be creative and try to use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols. Also, avoid using the same initials or the same numbers.
- Update your security software : Don't ignore security updates . Security software contains important fixes for any vulnerabilities that criminals could exploit.
- Use multi-factor authentication: This will add an extra layer of security, making it more difficult to log into your account even if your password is known.
We also need to think of data security from cybercriminals as an ongoing process that requires regular management, not a one-time task. We continue to insist on the importance of a multi-layered computing security environment , which includes not only technological solutions, but also user awareness of security and their role in it.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com
