Massive check-fraud botnet operation tied to Russia

Check fraud is an old-fashioned kind of crime, but a criminal ring with ties to Russia is using modern cybercrime techniques, including botnets, online databases of financial information and check imaging archives, to run a highly automated, multi-million-dollar counterfeit-check operation. The crime ring, dubbed "BigBoss" after the name found on a directory server used as part of the massive check-fraud operation, was discovered by researchers from SecureWorks last April. Is ubiquitous encryption technology on the horizon? "We figured out they're running a large-scale check counterfeiting scheme," says Joe Stewart, director of malware analysis for SecureWorks, who stumbled upon evidence of BigBoss while researching botnet code on the Internet. Posted in: Check Fraud ACH and Wire Fraud