A New Level Of Cyber Fraud - Keeping An Eye On Your Money

March 2020 - An e-mail arrives from a long-term business partner's e-mail address, informing of a change to their billing account number. The email appears to match familiar identifiers, such as the name, domain name, company name, etc. But, in reality, this address was established in another country by a “shell” company seeking to stealthily divert a legitimate payment to a bogus account. Such are the means by which companies can lose millions to scammers. Increasingly, tech-savvy criminals are using artificial intelligence-based software to imitate voices over the telephone, and even to make scam video calls using so-called “deepfake” technologies. Time to be even more careful with your money…

In 2018, the Czech Republic recorded 6,553 internet-related crimes. In Estonia, 965 cybercrimes were recorded last year. But this is really just the tip of the iceberg. Back in 2015, the Port of Tallinn fell victim to a cyber attack, when a ransomware virus encrypted a significant amount of the port's business-related data. The port refused to pay the ransom, and although most of the files in question were recovered, certain data was nonetheless lost. The attack also proved to be a major embarrassment. One wayward click—and suddenly a port is at the centre of a cyber-attack storm. In January 2020, a hospital in the Czech town of Benešov made headlines when it fell victim to a cyber attack, leading to the encryption of its systems. A subsequent investigation discovered that the infected computers were prompting users to contact the hackers—albeit no specific ransom claim was ever made. The attack caused weeks of disruptions at the hospital and several crucial medical devices were also affected. Investigators believe that the computer virus may have lay dormant within the hospital's systems for months before it finally activated.

Cyberattacks continue to become more sophisticated. Simple credit card phishing schemes are evolving into targetedand thus dangerousmass scamming operations. Phishing usually involves bulk emails sent to a large group of people. In 2019, a wave of spam e-mails was sent to Estonia, claiming that the recipient's e-mail address had been taken over, and that embarrassing and obscene conduct had been captured by the user's own web camera. The supposed solution to this predicament: avoid potential embarrassment by sending money to a specific Bitcoin wallet. But the general response by the Estonian recipients was unusually defiant...