Hackers steal millions of Euros from German Government’s COVID-19 financial aid
Hackers might have reportedly stolen over €100 million, kept as COVID-19 financial aid, from the government of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) province as officials didn’t secure the website. Hackers created the website’s copy and collected users’ credentials by sending them to counterfeit sites. They then used users’ personal information to the requests and collect funds on their behalf. The scam went on for around three weeks until April 9th, 2020, when the local government temporarily suspended payments and took its site offline. The scammers took advantage of a western region’s lack of identity verification. The police received 576 official fraud reports, with payments varying from €9000 to €25, 000.
The cybercriminals used a classic phishing scheme, first, they created a copy of the official website used by the NRW province to distribute coronavirus aid to businesses and self-employed individuals. Then they launched an email campaign to lure users to the phoney website and steal their credentials. The scammers requested financial aid on behalf of those individuals while using their own bank accounts.