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The couple deny any wrongdoing.
Moe Abourched and Kateryna Abourched are suspected of carrying out a fraudulent scheme in which they tricked a school district in Michigan (USA) into transferring a large amount of money to the bank account of their California nail salon.
According to police, the county and taxpayers were the victims of an online scam called a business email compromise (BEC) attack. $2.8 million was stolen in the fraudulent operation. Banks were able to withdraw about half of this amount after the fraud was uncovered. The couple deny any wrongdoing.
According to court documents, an unidentified hacker hacked into the email account of a member of the district's human resources department and, through emails, convinced a colleague from the finance department to change the bank account to which medical insurance payments were sent. The emails were short and polite.
The police traced the transfer of money to the bank account of the salon, owned by the Aburshed family. After discovering the theft, Mo Aburshed contacted the police and said that a European woman named Dora tricked him into accepting the funds and transferring them to other accounts. A secret service agent told AFP that Aburshed's claims are false, and he used a similar ploy after a BEC attack on a warehouse company in Florida.
“My clients have become unwitting victims of this scheme,” Abushedov’s lawyer, Kevin Gres, said.
BEC scammers use a variety of methods to hijack legitimate corporate email accounts and trick employees into sending electronic payments or making purchases. Targeted phishing emails are a common type of attack, but experts say scammers have quickly learned to plausibly impersonate company executives and influence subordinates.
For years, both BEC scams and ransomware attacks have been seen primarily as a law enforcement issue. This is still true for BEC attacks, but ransomware is now a key national security issue after a series of devastating attacks on critical infrastructure.
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Moe Abourched and Kateryna Abourched are suspected of carrying out a fraudulent scheme in which they tricked a school district in Michigan (USA) into transferring a large amount of money to the bank account of their California nail salon.
According to police, the county and taxpayers were the victims of an online scam called a business email compromise (BEC) attack. $2.8 million was stolen in the fraudulent operation. Banks were able to withdraw about half of this amount after the fraud was uncovered. The couple deny any wrongdoing.
According to court documents, an unidentified hacker hacked into the email account of a member of the district's human resources department and, through emails, convinced a colleague from the finance department to change the bank account to which medical insurance payments were sent. The emails were short and polite.
The police traced the transfer of money to the bank account of the salon, owned by the Aburshed family. After discovering the theft, Mo Aburshed contacted the police and said that a European woman named Dora tricked him into accepting the funds and transferring them to other accounts. A secret service agent told AFP that Aburshed's claims are false, and he used a similar ploy after a BEC attack on a warehouse company in Florida.
“My clients have become unwitting victims of this scheme,” Abushedov’s lawyer, Kevin Gres, said.
BEC scammers use a variety of methods to hijack legitimate corporate email accounts and trick employees into sending electronic payments or making purchases. Targeted phishing emails are a common type of attack, but experts say scammers have quickly learned to plausibly impersonate company executives and influence subordinates.
For years, both BEC scams and ransomware attacks have been seen primarily as a law enforcement issue. This is still true for BEC attacks, but ransomware is now a key national security issue after a series of devastating attacks on critical infrastructure.
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