Three Members of TMT Cybercrime Group Arrested in Nigeria (zdnet.com) 15
Three Nigerians suspected of being part of a cybercrime group that targeted tens of thousands of victims around the world have been arrested today in Lagos, Nigeria's capital, Interpol reported. From a report: In a report disclosing its involvement in the investigation, security firm Group-IB said the three suspects are members of a cybercrime group they have been tracking since 2019 and which they have been tracking under the codename of TMT. Group-IB said the group primarily operated by sending out mass email spam campaigns containing files laced with malware. To send their email spam, the group used the Gammadyne Mailer and Turbo-Mailer email automation tools and then relied on MailChimp to track if a recipient victim opened their messages. The file attachments were laced with various strains of malware that granted hackers access to infected computers from where they focused on stealing credentials from browsers, email, and FTP clients.
Can't arrest royalty! (Score:5, Funny)
They are all Princes!
Re:Can't arrest royalty! (Score:4, Insightful)
They are all Princes!
With the number of potential candidates, it wouldn't be surprising if some actually were.
Nigeria is a huge country, significantly larger than California, Oregon and Washington combined. It has a population about 2/3 that of the entire US, and over 30 distinct languages are spoken there.
The European colonial powers divided up Africa as if indigenous political affiliations, ethnicities, languages, and religions were completely insignificant. They divided up old nations and threw the parts together with remnants of other ones -- often forcing traditional enemies to share territory.
It shouldn't surprise us that Nigeria doesn't work very well, according to our standards. It should surprise us that it works at all. They're dealing with problems that most of us have never even heard of [wikipedia.org].
This was apparently deliberate, not ignorance (Score:2)
The European colonial powers divided up Africa as if indigenous political affiliations, ethnicities, languages, and religions were completely insignificant. They divided up old nations and threw the parts together with remnants of other ones -- often forcing traditional enemies to share territory.
Note that constructing nations containing pairs of traditional-enemy groups is typically not done from ignorance. It is a technique used by empire builders since at least the Roman Empire and the European empire b
Re: (Score:2)
... constructing nations containing pairs of traditional-enemy groups ... is a technique used by empire builders since at least the Roman Empire ...
Also: If some group in the area didn't have a traditional enemy group in the area where Rome was building a country, the Romans would sometimes move one in. Europeans copied that, too.
Dangit! (Score:3, Funny)
They didn't get Donatello!
I suppose that means the next episode is a special solo rescue mission episode.
And When did they stop being ninjas?
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, that's much better nonsense than what I was about to write.
Re: (Score:2)
That's brilliant.
I'm worried (Score:2)
I asked the Nigerian Prince I'd been corresponding with if this was all true, and he hasn't answered.
Obvious. (Score:2)
Clearly they forgot or more likely declined to *pay off* some government officials. Or it could be âoepalace intrigueâ, you know those Nigerian princes, always getting into it...
Vindication (Score:3)
and then relied on MailChimp to track if a recipient victim opened their messages.
So, my policy of blocking hundreds of domains associated with MailChimp by default has been correct all along...
Russians taking down Nigerians (Score:1)
Get the basics right, at least (Score:2)
Lagos is not the capital of Nigeria: that's Abuja.
Re: (Score:2)
Lagos is not the capital of Nigeria: that's Abuja.
Neither. The capital of Nigeria is all that money raised from email scams.
To little too late (Score:2)
They economic damages by these people are probably not quantifiable and effect thousands, maybe tens of thousands of individuals.
It only takes three people to ruin everyone's day, and now there are probably three more somewhere, because I keep getting spam calls