back to article More data joy: Email scammers are buying marks' info from legit biz intelligence firms

A Nigerian email scammer gang has evolved to the point where it has corporate-style specialist departments and uses commercial business intelligence data brokers to help plan its attacks. According to infosec research biz Agari, a group of business email compromise (BEC) scammers it nicknamed "London Blue" has become so well …

  1. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Boffin

    At what point...

    Does the Venn diagram of data miners - Nigerian criminal gangs on one side, Facebook, Google etc., on the other, merge into a single circle?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At what point...

      Three years ago.

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: At what point...

      A lot of scammers advertise on Facebook, Google and so on, so I think it already has. Maybe not the Nigerian ones, but certainly the likes of the fake bitcoin scams. Note, this is an entirely separate issue to the discussion about whether or not bitcoin itself is a scam. These scammers are people who take your money and don't give you any bitcoins in return for it.

      1. Uberior

        Re: At what point...

        They also advertise on narrower systems such as the Add-X scheme on WileyFox.

        You wouldn't believe the number of times I see the scowling face of Deborah Meaden on Peter Jones trying to tell me how much money they've made by investing in Bitcoins on the lockscreen of my WileyFox phone.

        Like the phone, but I'll never risk another one.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: At what point...

          You wouldn't believe the number of times I see the scowling face of Deborah Meaden on Peter Jones trying to tell me how much money they've made by investing in Bitcoins on the lockscreen of my WileyFox phone.

          That's a truly horrifying thought. My Xiaomi doesn't do crap like that, and I probably paid less (like for like) than WF buyers.

    3. GnuTzu
      Meh

      Re: At what point...

      Given that passive reconnaissance has been the first step since the beginning, this should be no surprise. If anything, buying data from legitimate services has been around for longer than we can know.

      Yes, we might hope that these services vet their customers, but why would they care? Yet, even if they were willing, crims are in the business of shrouding themselves, and there's little hope of guaranteeing that this practice would never happen.

  2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    I wonder how the researchers got all this information about the scammer gang.

    Probably the scammers are wondering that, too.

    "Don't tell 'em, Pike" ;-)

  3. Andy Non Silver badge

    Evolution

    Sounds like they're moving on from "Your long lost uncle has died in a plane crash in Nigeria and left you $10 million." or "The grieving widow of prince Fatfuker wants your help to transfer $50 million out of the country".

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like