Digital Robbery by Shun-Yung Kevin Wang & Ming-Li Hsieh

Author:Shun-Yung Kevin Wang & Ming-Li Hsieh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030707064
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

The Carbanak/Cobalt group has been identified as responsible for the cumulative losses of over one billion Euros globally as well as the highest gain per heist at up to ten million Euros (Europol, 2018). Taiwanese authorities’ investigation experiences on the FCB ATM hacking case provided significant intelligence to other countries that were victims of the same group, allowing them to explore and expand their investigations on cyberattacks. On March 26, 2018, the leader of the cyberattack syndicate behind the Carbanak/Cobalt group (Denis K.) was arrested in Alicante, Spain, in a joint law enforcement operation (e.g. Europol, Taiwan, Belarus, Romania, Spain, Moldova, United States) (Europol, 2018; Reuters, 2018).

According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, during the raid in Alicante, the police seized luxury cars and jewels worth 500,000 Euros and frozen bank accounts and two homes valued at about one million Euros. Denis K. had directed the criminal organization since 2013 and he converted the stolen cash into cryptocurrency. To further laundering money, he also set up an “enormous network” to mine Bitcoins. At the time of his arrest, he held accumulated about 15,000 Bitcoins (Reuters, 2018).

Denis K. worked with three other gang members without personal contact and conducted spear-phishing attacks on bank employees in the preparation phase of cyberattack. Criminals did not know each other but communicating via chat rooms online. They also worked with mafias to facilitate low-level job on ATM heist (Devereux, 2018; Schwartz, 2018). As Spanish National Police says,

Despite the high technical level of its members, the cybercriminals needed the support from other criminal groups to coordinate the work of the “mules” in charge of withdrawing cash from ATMs that it attacked in different countries… (Schwartz, 2018)

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