I am currently working a bankruptcy fraud case that involves a person adhering to the sovereign citizen ideology - and tactics. We get so focused on the new that we forget the old still exists. Internet facilitated fraud is the shiny nickle of the moment but the old tarnished penny still exists. And like that old penny, paper fraud still spends.
The beliefs of the sovereign citizen adherents are laughable and terrifying all at the same instance. The tactics they use to commit their campaigns of “paper terrorism” are stunningly simple yet equally complex to the point it takes a complete suspension of disbelief to comprehend the theory.
I plan to write more about the case, and the larger concept of bankruptcy fraud, when a disposition is reached and I’m clear to discuss the particulars.
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Finally waking up
The main stream press is finally waking up to what many of have known for weeks and months…the distribution of pandemic unemployment program funds has been an absolute disaster. Well, at least for the tax payer. It’s been going pretty damn well for the criminal. Particularly trans-national criminals. The Associated Press has caught on and appropriately attributes the failure to the states. O.K., the criminal is actually responsible but they’re just doing what they do.
“We’re all learning that there is an epidemic of fraud,” said U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House’s powerful Ways and Means Committee. Brady said the $63 billion estimate “is larger than the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security.”
Stalking Linkedin
This week I had to do some deep digging and and found my target had multiple profiles on Linkedin. In my effort to find some Linkedin specific OSINT tools I found this awesome tutorial by Maciej Makowski. A warning for those not familiar with Linkedin - users get a notice when someone views their profile so do not be logged into your own profile during these operations.
Holy vicarious liability…
United Airlines, the business entity, agreed to pay 49 million dollars in fees and fines to avoid a criminal prosecution for defrauding the United States Postal Service. The business had a agreement with the USPS where it would pay late fees for mail not delivered on time. The allegations are that (two) managers and their (two) employees would alter time stamps to make the mail appear delivered on time. Four can sink a ship, or drop a plane as it would be in this case.
CTI Self-Study Guide
Katie Nickels wrote a fantastic guide for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the field of Cyber Threat Intelligence. It is pretty much the outline for a graduate level course on the topic. In fact, Katie teaches the SANS FOR578 Cyber Threat Intelligence course, so it really is “the outline”. There is still have some winter left to keep you locked inside so dig into this resource list.
The Rest…
Trend Micro released their 2020 Annual Cybersecurity Report
Microsoft email users are being targeted with phishing emails that spoof FedEx and DHL service accounts. The notice claims there is a problem with the targets pending delivery.
SANS has published their resource links from the 2021 Open Source Intel Conference.
The U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the sentencing of a North Carolina man for mail theft and check fraud. The man was stealing mail from mailboxes and then altering business checks. Great work by all agencies involved!
A new variant of the Ryuk ransomware has been found to contain worm functionality that allows it to self-propagate to other machines on the local network.
The dumbest thing I read…
Actually two articles this week…both participants equally as stupid:
This brilliant fellow attempted to rob a bank by sending the teller a demand note through the pneumatic tube in the drive-through lane. This gives new meaning to the “felony lane”.
And this guy set his car on fire and then reported it stolen. Suspecting insurance fraud the police seized his cell phone and not surprisingly found he searched “how to set your car on fire and make it look like an accident.”
Cool Tool
Maxmind.com is my go to tool for quickly geo-locating an IP address but recently I’ve found Ipinfo.io is really accurate. Both services will give you limited free “demo” searches per day. The Ipinfo.io search bar is the white form block on the right side of the page. It automatically runs your outward facing IP address upon page view.
“SO MUCH ADVANTAGE IN LIFE COMES FROM BEING WILLING TO LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT IN THE SHORT TERM.” - someone smarter than me
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A programming note: I get my second vaccine shot this week. If you don’t see a newsletter come out next Monday then the anti-vaxers were right.