Puerto Rico: Believing online crooks, government agencies lost $ 2.6 million

Online scams are nothing new and this form of fraud does of course leave no one, even if it’s a government organization.

Flag of the island nation of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico officials have recently become victims of a trap set by cyber frauds. A Puerto Rican government agency transferred no less than $ 2.6 million into a fake account after being tricked into believing that the bank account used to pay for money transfers has changed.

The government said the transfer was made on January 17 but was discovered only this week. According to local officials, they contacted the FBI to investigate the incident.

In addition, the government representative stated that they are trying to recover this money but it is not clear if this effort will succeed if the bank disagrees.

“This is a very serious, very serious situation. We want the authorities to go into an investigation for the industrial company,” said Puertoén finance director, Puertoén . probably. ”

Phishing attacks have boomed in recent years and this has always been one of the common tactics of cybercriminals. Their goals are government organizations and agencies.

A report from security firm Proofpoint revealed that not less than 65% of US organizations were exposed to phishing attacks in 2019. Most of the consequence is that organizations will lose data, information and information. The information is compromised, but in some cases, organizations’ computers can be infected with malware.

Proofpoint’s report also revealed that about 35% of organizations suffer financial losses due to cyber fraud.

Proofpoint warns that cyber fraud is evolving unpredictably and the effects of this type of cybercrime are dangerous. In particular, phishing attacks will become more and more sophisticated, so organizations need to be very attentive and alert.

Refer to Softpedia