Microsoft Helps Nab Bulgarian Phishers
Microsoft commended Bulgarian law enforcement on Friday after the arrest of eight individuals involved in a phishing scam. The group used spoofed e-mail messages made to look like MSN customer service representatives sent them.
The Redmond company said it provided technical and investigative assistance to the Bulgarian National Services to Combat Organized Crime (NSCOC) agency. The arrests took place last week in three cities across the country, and those involved are suspected of committing fraud and attempting to steal personal information through the Internet.
Company investigators had nicknamed them the MBAM gang, short for Microsoft Billing Account Management. The scam came complete with spoofed MSN Web sites once the victim clicked on the links within the phishing e-mail. Altogether, the group is accused of launching 46 attacks across 43 servers in 11 different countries.
Actual identity theft was committed, and the scammers were able to get cash advances totaling more than $50,000 from victims in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, according to Microsoft investigators.
"This is an important step forward in the combat against those who prey on Internet users," Microsoft Europe general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement. "Microsoft believes vigorous criminal enforcement against phishers is essential to show cyber criminals that there are consequences to their illegal actions."
Microsoft says that it has supported over 300 phishing and spam cases worldwide to date. The company is also trying to prevent users from coming in contact with these scammers through the Microsoft Phishing Filter for MSN Toolbar, as well as spam filtering on its Hotmail service.
Over 3.4 billion spam messages are blocked on Hotmail per day, the company said.