[WARNING] Micro Transactions Lead to a Drained Bank Account

Bank Scam Micro Transactions Our friend R. Friederich at Marshalsec sent us this warning...

"Look at how much money this person had taken from his bank account over the course of a month. He had no withdrawal alerts or direct deposit alerts set up which, if he had, he would have likely been informed of those first couple of very minor micro-transactions back circa October 1- 3. The micro-transactions include both 'pre-authorized debits' and 'direct deposits.' This is done to establish connectivity to the bank account. It is basically the test to see if they can get away with it.

Then, come October 13th, the withdrawals came in a flurry.

The victim says all this happened after he set up his mortgage payments to be auto-deductions.

I didn't do the math but I am told the total is $293,769.

Check your account alerts! Make sure they are in place. This criminal activity apparently does not require your password or a 2FA code.

And check your account balances more than once a month.

This activity is considered an unauthorized withdrawal, so the victim will get their money back - but it may take 45 days."

We highly encourage you to send this warning along to your organization so then they can stay safe from these types of attacks. New-school security awareness training can teach your users cybersecurity best practices that they can implement in their day-to-day operations.

Are your user’s passwords…P@ssw0rd?

Employees are the weakest link in network security, using weak passwords and falling for phishing and social engineering attacks. KnowBe4’s complimentary Weak Password Test (WPT) checks your Active Directory for several different types of weak password related threats.