Volunteer activists expose money laundering websites

Criminals frequently use the Internet to recruit ‘money mules’ to gain access to stolen funds gained from their use of banking Trojans, key-loggers, and phishing.

People looking for jobs on the Internet are at risk of being targeted by money launderers who use spam messages, job adverts placed on real recruitment sites and illegitimate professional websites to convince the job hunter that they are being offered a genuine employment opportunity.

As a lure, money transfer agents are usually promised a 5-10 per cent commission for ‘processing payments’ through their personal bank accounts. After providing their bank details to the criminals, a major security risk in itself, money mules receive transfers of stolen money into their bank accounts. They then withdraw these funds and send them to the criminals using an anonymous money transfer service. Hypothetically, the transfer agent is forwarding the money to a software developer in a developing country. In reality they are supporting an illegal organisation.

Despite the fact that money mules are often unaware of having criminal involvement, people suspected of receiving and forwarding stolen money may have their bank accounts frozen while they are investigated. Becoming a money mule can also ruin a person’s credit history and lead to criminal charges.

F-Secure is supporting the work of volunteer activists to expose money laundering websites run by criminal organisations. F-Secure challenged interested volunteer experts to carry out further research on suspected money laundering websites to help shut them down, as part of a Web 2.0-style community approach to improve security on the Internet. This is in conjunction with the work of volunteer fraud investigator Bob at Bobbear.co.uk. Bob has uncovered a number of e-mail based job scams on websites that Internet users should be aware of. F-Secure provided prizes for the best material sent to Bobbear.co.uk.

Bob’s voluntary work fighting cyber crime has resulted in his website being attacked. His domain name was copied to make it appear that he was sending out spam that resulted in an investigation by his own Internet service provider, which temporarily took his site offline.

“We want to support the excellent work carried out by volunteer crime fighters like Bob at Bobbear.co.uk in exposing these activities, and help to build a community of volunteers in the fight against network crime,” said Sean Sullivan, security consultant at F-Secure.

“Dedicated volunteers like Bob are significantly helping to improve security on the Internet,” said Sullivan. “Collecting evidence that a website is involved in a money laundering operation is harder than showing it is spreading malware or stealing data from people. But if we all contribute to the research on how people are being deceived by these websites, there will be greater awareness of the dangers and less people will sign up as money mules. It means a safer Internet experience for everyone in the end.”