Alicante became the fourth state in the country with the devices most vulnerable to cyber attacks

from Civil Guard team @, Its unit responsible for investigating computer crimes said that cybercrime in Spain has increased fivefold in recent years as the use of the internet to conduct economic operations has become normal. They were investigated just last year More than 5,000 complaints In 2023, the number did not decrease, quite the opposite. Currently about Fifty active investigations in the province, many have national and international implications. The virtual realm makes it easier to conduct transactions from the network thousands of kilometers away from the victim’s location. For this reason, it is normal that the arrests made in the province in some of the operations carried out by Benemérita are people who are mules for much larger networks, but leaders of important organizations have also been caught.

mules They often try to pose as the owner of the bank accounts from which the money was received from the victims, which is often a transit point for transferring the money to others later, and they try to make the money difficult to trace. Once cleared, it falls into the hands of the leaders of the network. Benemérita emphasizes that these are perfectly hierarchical organizations, where each member is assigned tasks.

HE banking phishing It continues to be the main criminal method of these organized gangs, where the victim uses all kinds of tricks to gain access to the keys to bank accounts on the Internet and rob them, as a result of their carelessness. According to İncibe data 48 percent of the victims of these crimes are citizens and 52 percent are companies.. They succeeded from İncibe 16,902 phishing incidents across Spain Last year, we expected the 2023 data to be updated.

Benemérita stated that these scams are becoming increasingly complex and new methods are being found each time. Previously the most common route was a email Fraudsters impersonate a legitimate entity to steal some privileged information, demand financial fees, or infect the device with a virus that gives hackers free access to the computer equipment in question. The new methods are known as: “man in the middle” or CEO fraud, with which hackers They intercept some communications from the company and impersonate the addressee. In the case of CEO fraud, victims are often company executives or responsible individuals who are asked to pay a supplier via a spoofed identity. through these viruses also often try to block access to all of the company’s computers and having lost control over the equipment, he must pay a ransom to release it. Generally bitcoins.

Ragnar’s Gang

One of the last operations carried out in the state was the arrest of two hackers at the end of last October. Alicante and Torrevieja related to The group known as Ragnar LockerAn organization that specializes in blackmailing companies through data exfiltration. HE Alleged ringleader arrested in Czech Republic Many searches were also carried out in Ukraine.

In this macro operation eleven countries and it was possible to eliminate the technological infrastructure and programs they used. Ramsonware. Among those affected, There was a company from Vega Baja After the malware attack, all their servers were blocked. It was stated that this investigation, coordinated by Europol, was part of both the Civil Security team and the İncibe services of the Ministry of Finance. This criminal group may be responsible for the attackAt least 52 organizations in 10 critical infrastructure sectors. This group employed double blackmail tactics (freezing access to systems and threatening to disclose stolen data). Among those usurped by this group was a company from Vega Baja. Among his victims were: an Israeli hospital and a Portuguese airline.

Footage of the Civil Guard operation against what is known as Ragnar’s gang. Information

Benemérita participated this year Another international operation providing support to France stop Torrevieja To two members of a network dedicated to laundering money obtained through this cyber fraud.

But another method in which more and more cases are seen is love scam or love scam, where the victim is contacted via the internet or social networks using fake ID and they make him believe that you are protecting him virtual romanceeven though he had no contact with her other than chat conversations.

love scam

Sometimes in these love scams, the interlocutor is a computer program usually gives automatic responses. But there are also real people who try to seduce their victims and extort money from them.

Last February, agents from the @ team were arrested in Guardamar A couple managed to get up to 57,000 euros from a Teulada woman with one of those virtual scams. Among those arrested were a man and his romantic partner. The man managed to convince his victim. for 14 months that he had a virtual love affair with her while posing as an agent. Assigned to the national police, CNI, and son of a wealthy family from Elche, an organizer owns. They met for tinder and they changed more than one 350 messages per day, without seeing each other in person. Under this profile, he deceived the woman, who allegedly had family problems, and asked for money by promising to return the money. But she didn’t just stay there. Moreover He tricked the previous victim’s sister by pretending to be his brother-in-law and defrauding him of a further €36,000 for renovations he never carried out.

Considering that one in every four queries that İncibe receives stems from phishing crimes, a total of some 1,345 victims have contacted the service to report that they have encountered a problem. sex blackmail. Criminals They blackmailed him by threatening to spread intimate images. Similarly, another 700 people would investigate whether they had been harassed online. But also too much 5,000 people contacted to report someone impersonating their identity. Another 800 people were consulted with messages about fake legacies, donations or rewards.

Suggestions

Civil Guard reminds that these crimes were not committed don’t let your guard down and often tracking money is complicated because these networks are so fast and so well structured that they can destroy money at full speed once their goals are achieved. Therefore, we have a number of suggestions to avoid being exposed to these thefts. Use strong passwords; use two-factor authentication systemskeep all operating systems up to date; don’t click any links or open email attachments of unknown origin; use secure networks and remember that devices on public Wi-Fi are more vulnerable to data theft; create data backup in companiesto prevent paralysis of activity.

Incibe provides specific technical support for cybersecurity incidents reported by citizens and companies in Spain. The aim is to provide them with the technological and coordination capacity that will enable them to provide operational support against cyber threats. ANDThis service is provided continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.through phone 017, and addressed to citizens, companies, digital service providers, organizations affiliated with the Spanish Academic and Research Network (RedIRIS), critical operators and essential service operators. Most of the questions coming in now are to prevent an incident. 55% of consultations were preventive. In its place, the remaining 45% were people who had been attacked before and they tried to find a solution.