Welcome to Issue 64!
If you do a Google search for the term “Felony Lane Gang”, you will get “about 2,860,001” results. That’s a little more than a bunch. Most of them appear to be news reports with titles such as,“Felony Lane Gang targets Moms”, “EPD arrests woman they say is part of the Felony Lane Gang”, or “Felony Lane Gang Ramping Up Again”. The commonality of these reports is the generalization that all of these bad actors have a familial connection. The news reporters and journalists undoubtedly get this bent from those of us in law enforcement and financial industry security who flippantly suggest the connection. We casually suggest the conspiracy by referring to every group who steals bags and cashes checks through the far drive-through teller lane as “the Felony Lane Gang”. Singular. As if they are all connected like a mafioso crime family or neighborhood sect of a national gang.
They are not. And we should stop doing this.
Continue Reading: https://write.as/mattdotts/felony-lane-gang-is-not-a-gang
Welcome to the Party
It seems that officials at the U.S. Treasury department are just now noticing, or at least verbalizing, the problems NFT’s will present when trying to prevent laundering money through the sale of “art”. It was already a problem. Hello Etsy. It’s all digital now and you don’t even have to pretend to be running a shop, or even have any physical products. https://www.reuters.com/business/nfts-flourish-us-treasury-raises-alarm-over-money-laundering-art-2022-02-04/
Fake job ads, real victims
This certainly isn’t anything new, but the FBI issued an updated warning that scammers continue to exploit security weaknesses on job recruitment websites to post fraudulent job postings. They specify the goal is to collect the soon-to-be victim job applicants personal information to commit identity theft, but I think just as many also become money mules. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA220201
Good idea but I won’t hold my breath
The Department of Homeland Security has created the Cyber Safety Review Board that will be tasked with investigating major national cybersecurity incidents in an effort to “meaningfully improve” the nation’s cyber resilience. The group has some high power members, including Dmitri Alperovitch, former chief technology officer at CrowdStrike. I’d like to think they could actually get some things accomplished but it’s still an agency run by the government, so I expect to be underwhelmed. https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/03/homeland-security-cyber-safety-review-board/
More NFT fraud
Maybe one of us should create a training class on NFT’s. I imagine most police and FI security have zero knowledge of what they are let alone how they work. Of course, who even has the jurisdiction to investigate victimization? Anyways… NFT marketplace OpenSea is facing backlash over restricting the use of a NFT minting tool. In explaining the reason for the new regulations they admitted that “over 80% of the items created with the tool were plagiarized works, fake collections and spam” Of course they are! https://www.dpreview.com/news/5284763122/opensea-admits-at-least-80-percent-of-nfts-hosted-on-its-platform-are-plagiarized-or-knock-offs
The Rest…
5000 blank Covid-19 vaccination cards have been stolen from PA hospital. Police think it might have been an inside job since they were kept in a storage closet accessible to ALL HOSPITAL STAFF. Where is that shaking my head emoji? https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2022/02/5000-blank-covid-19-vaccination-cards-stolen-from-pa-clinic-and-it-could-be-inside-job.html
Old school check fraud is on the rise. It’s like 1990 again. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077766541/usps-checks-mail-fraud-bank
Ransomware response firm Coveware calculates the national average Q4 ransom payment has increased to $322,168, up 130% from Q3. https://www.coveware.com/blog/2022/2/2/law-enforcement-pressure-forces-ransomware-groups-to-refine-tactics-in-q4-2021
Cool Tool
Chrome extension that extracts all the email addresses of the pages you visit - a simple version of Harvester. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/email-extract/ejecpjcajdpbjbmlcojcohgenjngflac
Cool Job
Manager of Fraud - BlueSnap https://www.comeet.com/jobs/bluesnap/73.002/manager-of-fraud/DF.92E
“IF YOU ARE SCARED OF MAKING MISTAKES, YOU WILL NEVER GROW.” - someone who has grown a lot more than me.
Irrelevant
SO… this guy enters a zoo and steals a bobcat, yeah like a mini-mountain lion, and when he gets caught with it in the trunk of his car, his charges include “open lewdness”. Figure that one out. https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/2022/02/bobcat-stolen-from-monroe-county-zoo-business-police-say-in-seeking-tips.html
Thank you for opening this weeks email. Please consider sharing with your colleagues to help us grow.
Matt
Bonus long read that you should read.
A really well written and insightful threat analysis of China by Recorded Future.
https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/ta-2022-0203.pdf