Organized cyber thieves took roughly $600,000 from the coastal city of Brigantine, New Jersey this week after stealing the city’s online banking credentials.
The attack occurred in the middle of a week in which federal officials announced dozens of arrests and charges against money mules and the organized criminals responsible for orchestrating these types of break-ins. While it’s unclear whether those responsible for the attack on Brigantine were apprehended or charged this week, the method by which the thieves made off with at least some of the loot bears the same fingerprint as past breaches, including the Egg Harbor attack.
The thieves appear to have obtained a username and password for the city's main TD Bank account either through a phishing site or a keylogger or some other malware. At 6PM on September 28, bank officials notified senior city finance officials that multiple wire transfers had been made out of the city's accounts totaling about $600,000. They have been able to recall about $400,000 of that.
The transfers in such cases go to money mules, individuals who, wittingly or unwittingly, take the transfer into their account and pass on a percentage. This incident was the same week in which, as Krebs puts it "...federal officials announced dozens of arrests and charges against money mules and the organized criminals responsible for orchestrating these types of break-ins."
