The 2022 Keystone Konnection Conference was held last Monday - Wednesday at the Seven Springs Resort and Conference Center somewhere deep in the middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania. There were speakers, and vendors, some good food, and a super-awesome cornhole tournament, but the real highlight of the event was the other attendees. Yes, the best part of the event was meeting other like-minded professionals and building relationships.
Building an expansive network isn’t just beneficial to your professional career, it also increases your overall effectiveness as a practitioner. Financial and cyber crimes have become so complicated and involve so many moving parts that it’s extremely difficult to get anything done by yourself. A lone wolf will quickly become an unemployed wolf. Think about the financial and Internet systems involved in a typical Business Email Compromise. Or a romance scam. Or loan fraud. To be a successful investigator or security practitioner you need partners - you need business contacts that you can call and get immediate assistance. These connections are made at events like Keystone.
If you aren’t a member of the IAFCI - International Association of Financial Crime Investigators - join now! They even have a two-for-one special where a pair of co-workers can join for the price of a single membership.
And then join some training and networking events. You’ll be glad you did!
Join the IAFCI - https://iafci.org/Public/Join_IAFCI/Public/Join_IAFCI/Join_IAFCI.aspx?hkey=d9022cfb-4272-46e3-934c-dbf96e79fc13
Front and Center
Those of who investigate financial and cyber crime for a law enforcement agencies are well aware they are second class. Physical crimes, those happening in the community, will always be the focus of police leadership. Crimes of violence, physical property crimes, sex crimes, drugs, offenses against children, public nuisances ect… will always get priority over financial and cyber. Billions of dollars lost to pandemic relief fraud doesn’t even raise an eyebrow, but someone selling marijuana a block from a school will draw every resource at the police department’s disposal.
James Folley, Vice-President of the National White Collar Crime Center, managed to get his article featured in the ‘Police Chief’ magazine published by the International Associations of Chiefs of Police. The article is titled “The Growing Problem of Transnational Elder Fraud”. Is it a problem? Yes. Is it growing? Yes. Will this article make police leadership realize that they should invest more resources into combating the problem? Probably not. BUT, it’s great to see the topic get press in such a high profile space.
https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/the-growing-problem-of-transnational-elder-fraud/
Reality
The reality is that your organization is going to fall victim to cyber attack. To your best effort to prevent it, eventually an attacker is going to get through. Tony Lauro, Director of Security Technology for Akamai, discusses this sobering reality and explains that a focus needs to placed on “reducing the blast radius” when the bomb does explode. https://threatpost.com/cyberattacks-blast-radius/179612/
Get Linked, not Phished
I missed this article when it was first published in April. Check Point Research released its Q1 2022 Phishing report that revealed LinkedIn was the most imitated brand for the quarter accounting for 52% of all phishing attempts. This is a marked shift to targeting social media networks, as in the past the most phished brands were email providers, financial institutions, or shipping services. https://www.checkpoint.com/press/2022/social-media-network-linkedin-ranks-first-in-list-of-brands-most-likely-to-be-imitated-in-phishing-attempts-in-q1-2022/
Insider Threats and Fraud - Even in Golf
A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to serve 14 months in prison and to pay 3.3 MILLION dollars in restitution after a six year scam of the United States Golf Association. The guy exploited a weakness in the U.S. Open ticketing system which allowed him unfettered access to the highly coveted tickets which he then sold to a broker. How did this go on for six years? Did the USGA have absolutely no auditing and compliance program? How did they not realize that many tickets were slipping out the back door? Good grief. https://www.pennlive.com/news/2022/05/former-usga-employee-sentenced-for-ticket-scam-at-mulitple-us-open-tournaments.html
The Rest…
DEXs and Mixers - learn how these tools are used to launder money. https://www.elliptic.co/blog/money-laundering-through-dexs-and-mixers
Crowdstrike explains how cybercriminals monetize ransomware. https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/how-ecriminals-monetize-ransomware/
ESET Security reminds us of the ten reasons victims become victims. https://www.welivesecurity.com/2022/05/12/10-reasons-why-we-fall-scams/
The DOJ named the first director of the new National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-first-director-national-cryptocurrency-enforcement-team
Cool Tool
Use DuckDuckGo better with !Bangs. https://duckduckgo.com/bang
The largest open database of cellular towers - https://opencellid.org/
Cool Job
Senior Fraud Analyst - Docusign. https://www.docusign.com/company/careers/open?gh_jid=4212388&gh_src=ua6xck
Irrelevant
LoFi FM - online music player for LoFi hip-hop fans
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Matt
“JUST BECAUSE THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT, IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER.” - someone who is easier on themselves than me.
#cybercrime #fraud #financial_crime #investigations #security #threat #cyfi_crime #aml #cryptocurrency