Cybecriminals targeted a California based Escrow firm and stole $1.5 million earlier 2014. This left\u00a0the firm with no option other than to close shop and lay off its staff. The court-appointed law firm\u00a0which is representing the company holds the other cyberheist victim\u2019s money. The law firm is\u00a0working on a lawsuit against the escrow\u2019s bank to recover the stolen cash.<\/p>\n
In Dec 22, a fraudulent wire transfer of $432,215 was sent from the Efficient Services Escrow\u00a0Group\u2019s banks accounts to a bank in Moscow. The firm\u2019s accounts are based in Huntington Beach,\u00a0California. A month later, the cybercriminals came calling again. They managed to siphon off $1.1\u00a0million via two wire transfers. This time, the funds were directed to the Northern region Chinese\u00a0province of Heilongjiang.<\/p>\n
Heilongjiang Province which borders Russia\u00a0was a\u00a0subject of an FBI cyberheist investigation a year\u00a0before. The FBI had warned that cyber criminals had managed to steal $20 million in the previous\u00a0year alone. The victims were mainly the medium and small size firms. The cash stolen had been\u00a0transferred to Chinese economic and trade companies.<\/p>\n
Even though Efficient Services did manage to chase and get hold of the funds siphoned off to\u00a0Russia, the $1.1 million to China was long gone. All Escrow companies and title companies are\u00a0required to report of any lost funds immediately; under California law. When Efficient came\u00a0forward with the theft report, The California Department of Corporations ordered the firm to come\u00a0up with the funds. Efficient Services had not traced the money nor was it able to replace it after the\u00a0three days grace period given by the state regulators. The authorities had no other option but to\u00a0force the firm to close down.<\/p>\n
The state established a conservatorship under which Efficient Services\u2019 funds would be held. This\u00a0meant that the firm\u2019s owners could not in any way access any of their remaining funds. The state\u00a0went ahead to appoint a receiver in July to help in the winding up process of the firm\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
Peter A. Davidson affiliated with the Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP law firm based in Beverly Hills is\u00a0the court-appointed receiver. Peter insinuated that the company was weighing their chances of\u00a0recovering the stolen monies from the Foundation Bank which is based in Irvine California.<\/p>\n
Peter said that the firm is exploring the chance of it recovering the stolen money for clients who had\u00a0escrows with it and also with those it owes money. The company had already filed a claim with the\u00a0insurance and was even looking for possible ways through which they can engage with the bank,\u00a0added Peter.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said that customer logins for business customers of the bank were only protected by a\u00a0username and a password. In addition, the bank protected the business customers with an active\u00a0token code. However, at the time of the cyberheists, the one-time token code system was not\u00a0working. The First Foundation Bank failed to respond to any of these claims.<\/p>\n
According to Daniel J. Crenshaw, the co-founder of Efficient, the bank had issued a report\u00a0immediately after the money was stolen that the funds were not stolen by cybercriminals but by one\u00a0of the Efficient Services\u2019 employees. After the state appointed forensics experts to examine the loss\u00a0of the funds, the banks hurriedly withdrew from its former claim. Crenshaw adds that investigators\u00a0found that the bank\u2019s system had been compromised remotely just before the heists began.<\/p>\n
However, by the time the investigators were establishing that the bank\u2019s systems had been\u00a0compromised by cybercriminals, the money had already been stolen and Efficient Services had\u00a0sunk. In addition, 9 employees had lost their livelihood. According to Crenshaw, at the time the\u00a0firm was forced to close shop, it was in the process of clearing half a million dollars in profit. It was\u00a0supposed to reach a million dollar profit target in 2014.<\/p>\n
Crenshaw insisted that Efficient Services\u2019 primary job now is to get back the stolen money that\u00a0belongs to their former clients. He added that 20 client\u2019s the firm had before it went under have\u00a0been very helpful in as far as getting back the stolen money. However, the most disappointing thing\u00a0about the whole incident is that 9 people are out of employment, he added.<\/p>\n
Peter, on the other hand, says that he is puzzled as to why the bank did nothing when it realized that\u00a0money was being wired overseas. He added that despite Efficient Services never having sent any\u00a0money overseas, the bank went ahead and confirmed the fraudulent transactions. But as it is, many\u00a0banks do not intervene when an international wire transfer is being done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cybecriminals targeted a California based Escrow firm and stole $1.5 million earlier 2014. This left\u00a0the firm with no option other than to close shop and lay off its staff. The court-appointed law firm\u00a0which is representing the company holds the other cyberheist victim\u2019s money. The law firm is\u00a0working on a lawsuit against the escrow\u2019s bank to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[55,81,72,82,83,62,48,50,74,84,85],"class_list":["post-7272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-news","tag-cyber-heist","tag-cyberheist","tag-escrow-firm-cyber-heist","tag-hacker","tag-illegal-wire-transfer","tag-krebs","tag-malware","tag-phishing","tag-phishing-email","tag-remote-access-trojan","tag-trojan"],"yoast_head":"\n