How Cybercriminals Are While cybercrime has been getting a lot of attention from law enforcement and the media lately, I’ve been documenting a less high-tech threat emerging in recent months: an increase in stolen checks.
Criminals are increasingly targeting the U.S. Postal Service and personal mailboxes to steal filled checks and sell them online using social media platforms. Buyers then change the payee and amount on the checks to steal thousands of dollars from victims’ bank accounts. While the banks themselves typically bear the financial burden and refund the targeted accounts, criminals can use the checks to steal victims’ identities, which can have serious consequences.
I founded and now lead the Evidence Based Cybersecurity Research Group at Georgia State University, which aims to learn what works and what doesn’t in preventing cybercrime. For the past two years, we’ve been monitoring 60 black market communication channels on the Internet to learn more about the online fraud ecosystem and systematically collect data on it to identify trends.
One thing we didn’t expect to see was an increase in stolen checks.
An old threat returns In general, bank check theft is a type of fraud that involves the theft and unauthorized cashing of a check. It’s not a new phenomenon. Criminals have been committing check fraud since the first modern checks were cut in 18th-century England – and authorities were already looking for ways to prevent it.
Although there is little historical data on this type of Honduras WhatsApp Number List fraud, we do know that it became particularly problematic in the 1990s, as the Internet made it easier than ever to find willing buyers of illicit items. For example, financial institutions estimated that they lost approximately US$1 billion to check fraud from April 1996 to September 1997.
But what may seem a little surprising is that its resurgence now comes at a time when the vast majority of transactions are conducted electronically and the use of checks continues to decline. What Check Fraud Looks Like.
Generally speaking, the check scams we track look like this:
How Cybercriminals Are Turning Paper Checks Stolen From Mailboxes Into Bitcoin
After stealing a check, criminals use nail polish WhatsApp Number Database remover to remove the ink from the pen use to write them. The criminals black out the checking account and code numbers so they can’t be use without a purchase. Names and addresses have been mask to protect the victims’ identities.
Someone breaks into a mailbox that stores letters waiting to be maile and grabs some of them in the hopes that they contain a fille-out check. Often, the crime scene where the theft occurs is the victim’s own mailbox, but it could also be one of those blue USPS boxes you pass on the street.
Thieves can deposit or cash the checks themselves or sell them to others through a marketplace for illicit items, such as fake IDs and credit cards. Prices are typically $175 for personal Bulk Database checks and $250 for business checks, payable in bitcoin, but still negotiable and cheaper in bulk, based on our observations and direct interactions with sellers.
Buyers then use nail polish remover to erase the intend payee’s name and the amount displayed on the check, replacing those details with their own preferred payee, such as a retailer, and the amount, usually much higher than the original check. A buyer can also simply cash the check at a place like Walmart using a fake ID.
