And you would think that after years of reporting, no one would fall for the “Nigeria connection” anymore.

As derStandard and Wired report, the so-called Nigeria Connection always manages to swindle money from inexperienced users and not only that - small businesses in particular are targeted as a lucrative target group.

According to the IT security service provider Crowdstrike (PDF), these groups organize themselves like the mafia of yesteryear. Even if they are not particularly technically advanced, convincingly worded emails hit the mark more often than you might think. New members also receive their own name in such “families”. The fraudulent acts are often even reported on social networks using their own language and music.

For a long time, the so-called “Yahoo Boys” focused on victims who contacted them via Yahoo addresses. A rap song called “Yahooze” praises the criminal activities:

“Successful like never before”

According to the FBI, around 40,000 “business email compromises” were carried out worldwide between 2013 and 2016, with a loss of 5.3 billion euros. The “Nigeria Connection” was able to successfully expand its pool and is no longer just a threat to private individuals.

Of course, the scam is not the same as that used for gullible older women. As a reminder : private individuals are being dragged onto the pity rail . They specifically send fake emails to company employees in the hope that they will act carelessly and infect malware

They use this malware to monitor their victims, so to speak. You log account data and analyze company structures. After some time, they contact the company and pretend to be an employee or representative of a partner company. It is not uncommon for the accounts of these companies to be cracked and taken over. Real invoices are then intercepted, bank details are changed and then forwarded to the actual target person.

Such “man in the middle” attacks are carried out for as long as possible.

Cheap methods that work

For example, a large number of domains are registered that sound similar to real company addresses. If the trick no longer works with a domain, they immediately switch to another address. The focus is not on self-developed malware, but rather simply using ready-made, inexpensive malware. However, such groups have truly perfected identity theft. From official letterhead to videos of employees simply playing on Skype calls, the “Nigeria Connection” knows exactly how to put on a perfect show for their victims.

The stolen amounts are often redirected through several stations in Asia before they arrive in Nigeria. The consequences for small businesses are often serious. According to the FBI, once these are done, they are defrauded of $200,000 to $500,000.

However, companies should generally protect themselves by using a strict email filter and requiring the use of two-factor authentication.

Chatbot Re:scam

As Futurezone reports, the New Zealand network security organization Netsafe a chatbot at the end of last year to take on spammers. Spam emails can be forwarded to me@rescam.org, after which the chatbot called Re:scam over further communication.

Fraudsters are thus trolled themselves. Some scammers only realize after a lively exchange of emails that the answers may not be serious.

According to the Guardian, 6,000 emails have already been received from spam victims and 1,000 conversations have been held with fraudsters. By the end of 2017, a specially created Twitter account was updated, on which excerpts from email communication could be followed.

Since the beginning of 2018, however, things have become quiet around Re:scam. The question of whether the chatbot will continue to be used successfully remains open. In any case, the conversations so far are really amusing to watch:


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