Fortinet’s cyber threat intelligence helps INTERPOL to bust $60 million-worth online fraud

Bengaluru: Fortinet, the NASDAQ-listed global leader in high-performance cyber security solutions, has announced that Fortinet FortiGuard Labs' threat research helped uncover a global cybercrime fraud ring behind thousands of online scams.

As a result of Fortinet’s actionable cyber threat intelligence, the head of the international criminal network was arrested in a joint operation by INTERPOL and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in June 2016.

Derek Manky, Global Security Strategist, Fortinet, revealed, “Fortinet is taking action to fight cybercrime not only via product and services innovation with our Fortinet Security Fabric, but also global public and private sector relationships. It’s been a long tradition in the security world to share information on applied threat research, such as intelligence and analytics as well as newly discovered threats or vulnerabilities. But to help us all get ahead of threats instead of just chasing them, security vendors have a responsibility to share threat findings between public and private organizations. The best way to combat the negative impact of cybercriminals is partnership based on actionable intelligence from wide and diverse sources. Cybercrime has no borders, and this is an excellent example of a global collaborative effort to solve what is indeed a complex problem. We need to set examples and go after the Achilles heel - the malicious actors and their assets.”

Noboru Nakatani, Executive Director of the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation, also said, “The public, and especially businesses, need to be alerted to this type of cyber-enabled fraud. It is exactly through this type of public and private sector cooperation that INTERPOL will continue to help member countries in bringing cybercriminals to justice no matter where they are.”

Fortinet says that its FortiGuard Labs cyber threat research helped uncover a group of online fraudsters behind thousands of online scams totaling more than $60 million and involving hundreds of victims worldwide. The group runs 419 scam, dating scam, Alibaba scam, financial account hi-jacking and payment diversion fraud with worldwide targets. They also leveraged an extensive money laundering network in order to disburse funds. The fraudsters deployed two types of social engineering scams targeting businesses through either payment diversion fraud or CEO fraud.

This reinforces the prevelance of an advanced threat technique called ‘behavior blending’. Behavior blending is a technique used by criminals that allows them to blend in on a compromised network, which has a lot of potential for thwarting detection over sustained periods of time. As a result of Fortinet’s actionable cyber threat intelligence, the head of the international criminal network was arrested in a joint operation by INTERPOL and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in June 2016. The successful operation is the result of close threat information cooperation between Fortinet and INTERPOL.

Fortinet has also said that the company is actively directing the future of threat intelligence standards and protocols through its ongoing collaboration with global law enforcement, government and industry organizations. Actionable threat intelligence cannot be achieved without a strategic methodology and standardization in place to define global cybersecurity standards.