A Washington State public hospital has become the latest victim of cybercriminals. A gang which\u00a0operates from Ukraine and Russia stole $1.03 million from the hospital with abet of more than 100\u00a0people based in the\u00a0United States. The accomplices were hired by the criminals through the \u2018work-from-home\u2019 job racket. The criminals have been operating such a scam for the past five years.<\/p>\n
According to a publication dated April 19th by The Wenatchatee World, the attack was carried out\u00a0on a Cascade Medical Center managed Chelan County Public Hospital No. 1. According to the\u00a0publication, the heist removed an estimated $1.03 million from the hospital\u2019s payroll account. The\u00a0money which was mostly sent to Midwest and East Coast banks ended up in 96 banks accounts.<\/p>\n
The hospital oblivious of the current state of cybercrimes did not pay any attention to several calls\u00a0to a reporter who was trying to alert the hospital of the crimes against its bank account. The reporter\u00a0went ahead and contacted two people who had unsuspectingly been recruited by the Eastern Europe\u00a0gang. They had reported to having been used to help launder more than $14,000 which had been\u00a0stolen from the hospital\u2019s accounts.<\/p>\n
According to Jesus Contreras one of the unwitting accomplices, he had been unemployed for more\u00a0than two months. The 31-year-old man from San Bernardino, Calif., apparently received an email\u00a0from Best Inc. in the email, the company purported to be based in Melbourne, Australia. It further\u00a0said that it\u2019s in software development and that it had discovered Contreras\u2019 resume on\u00a0Careerbuilders.com. Contreras was told that he was well suited for a work-from-home position in\u00a0the company. His main task would be to forward payments to software developers who were\u00a0working with Best Inc.\u2019s abroad partners.<\/p>\n
He was asked whether he was available to start on the job right away. The other thing needed was a\u00a0home computer to start working. The pay was 8% of all the transfers he made. Having been out of\u00a0work for so long, he said he was available to start on the job. His previous job was at an airplane\u00a0parts company where he was in the inventories section.<\/p>\n
Contreras boss at Best Inc. was a woman who had a European accent. Her name was Erin Foster.\u00a0She interviewed Contreras over the phone and asked him about his past work experience and his job-life balance expectations. He was immediately hired and his first task was to produce a report\u00a0detailed report on the commercial real estate market in Southern California. According to Contreras,\u00a0the reason for this first assignment was because Best Inc. was thinking of starting up an office in the\u00a0Southern California region.<\/p>\n
The Monday that followed (April 22), a short while after he had submitted the research assignment,\u00a0Contreras received his supposedly first assignment of wire transfer. He was to take the $9,180\u00a0which had just been deposited into his account and send it to four accounts at the Western Union and\u00a0MoneyGram in nearly equal portions. After taking care of the transfer fees, he was left with around\u00a0$100.<\/p>\n
Later, Contreras was beating himself because the deal seemed to be too good to be true. However,\u00a0having been out of work and bills piling over including those of his dad who had been hospitalized,\u00a0he figured that he didn\u2019t have much to lose by taking up this job. Little did he know he was to be\u00a0part of a huge cyberheist.<\/p>\n
Luckily for the victims and Contreras, he hadn\u2019t withdrawn any of the little cash he had \u2018earned\u2019.\u00a0Bank of America swiftly moved in later and froze his account and took everything in it. At that very\u00a0moment, the treasurer\u2019s office at Chelan County was struggling to recoup as much as it could.<\/p>\n
However, by the time the story went to press; only$133,000 of the stolen funds had been recovered.\u00a0It was estimated that it would take around 30 days to know how much the cyberheist actually cost\u00a0the Chelan Hospital.<\/p>\n
Although undersized, yet significant, is the fact that Contreras was never able to spend any of his\u00a0insubstantial gains. Bank of America, Contreras\u2019 financial institution, froze his account and took\u00a0hold of the insignificant funds left in the account. Meanwhile, the Chelan County treasurer\u2019s office\u00a0was struggling to claw back the fraudulent transfers. According to press reports, roughly $133,000\u00a0of the lost funds had been recovered so far, and it was thought that it\u2019d take at least 30 days to learn\u00a0how much was actually lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Washington State public hospital has become the latest victim of cybercriminals. A gang which\u00a0operates from Ukraine and Russia stole $1.03 million from the hospital with abet of more than 100\u00a0people based in the\u00a0United States. The accomplices were hired by the criminals through the \u2018work-from-home\u2019 job racket. The criminals have been operating such a scam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[41,62,48,49,50,52,76,78],"class_list":["post-7270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-news","tag-hackers","tag-krebs","tag-malware","tag-money-mules","tag-phishing","tag-russian-cyber-heist","tag-static-authentication","tag-ukrainian-cyber-heist"],"yoast_head":"\n