Four hackers where arrested recently and charged with crimes related to a phone scam targeting customers of AT&T. The group was paid to break into AT&T’s phone systems so that calls to international premium rate services could be made and payments diverted. The most startling discovery is that it seems the money from this hack/scam was used to fund a Saudi-based militant group.
The Guardian is reporting that the four hackers were arrested in the Philippines by local police working in conjunction with the United States' FBI. It seems that these four individuals were being funded by a group that is accused by the FBI of funding the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
The hack involved premium-service phone lines being set up in places like Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Those lines are bogus and the scam involves hacking user accounts to make calls to those services. The money accumulated is then transferred elsewhere. AT&T spokesperson Jan Rasmussen acknowledged that the company wrote off fraudulent charges on some customer bills. The estimated cost to AT&T was $2 million but AT&T has refused to comment on that number.
The FBI leveraged the help of its Anti-Transnational and Cyber Crime Division (ATCCD) to help with finding the hackers. ATCCD chief Police Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa identified one of the four people arrested as Paul Michael Kwan who had previously been arrested in 2007 in relation to an FBI crackdown on groups suspected of funding militant group activities.
Last week AT&T announced that some of its customers accounts had been attacked, but they believe no information was taken and no accounts had been actually breached. The company has not commented on the relationship between those attacks and this incident.
Did any of you folks have fraudulent charges appear on your phone bill? Did AT&T resolve the issue for you quickly? Let us know if you have any experience with these attacks in the comments.
