Computer hackers take Church money targeted for poor

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Computer hackers from Europe recently targeted St Ambrose Cathedral in Des Moines, Iowa and stole more than NZ$800,000, according to CBS News.

It was money ear-marked to help out the homeless and abused women.

“You kind of have to take a deep breath and you have to trust in the Lord,” Richard Pates said.

“Why would they do it in a particular time when we had the greatest amount of funds available?”

This heist is part of the latest wave of cyber-crime, based in Eastern Europe, targeting small towns, community banks and civic organisations that often lack high-tech defences.

Earlier this month the town of Pittford in New York was taken for NZ$170k and a New Jersey beach town lost NZ$725k.

The hackers get access to the accounts by sending an email to a vulnerable person, someone with access to the account and they ask whoever is helping run the organisation to click on a link that appears to come from a close friend or the likes of an official government organisation.

Clicking the link installs the malicious software bug that allows the hackers to steal bank passwords and transfer funds at will.

“You’re seeing a lot of this type of crime get reported now,” Ron Plesco, head of the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, told CBS. “No doubt in my mind this is organized crime,” he added.

The FBI says it opens one or two new cases of account takeover fraud a week.

St. Ambrose’s losses eventually were covered by insurance and its bank.

Sources