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Phishers Love Online Gambling
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-02-27
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Countries with favorable laws permitting the hosting of online gambling sites also draw the attention of criminals looking for places to host phishing sites.
 | | Phishers Love Online Gambling |  |
Money laundering is the name of the game for some gamblers and their botnets, when they hit the online casinos. If they can do so with the phished details of someone else's credit card information.
Security vendor Symantec said several instances of very small countries providing a home for phishing sites attracted their attention. After ruling out other possibilities that would draw phishers to places like Costa Rica and Antigua, someone noted the prevalence of online gambling sites in those countries.
"One of the reasons that the United States government decided to ban online casinos is because they are seen as a good opportunity for organized crime (and other ne'er-do-wells) to launder ill-gotten money," Symantec's Marvin Fabuli wrote. "That appears to be one of the motives behind phishing online gamblers."
Phishers obtain stolen credit card numbers from their victims, using the accounts in casino play. For laundering money, it's a simple process of getting the pot to a pre-determined winner. Preprogrammed bots make the process automatic. Money goes in dirty, comes out clean.
Fabuli cited one source that claimed US laws forbidding the processing of payments from gambling sites by banks or credit card companies pushed payment processing underground. This makes them vulnerable to phishers who may be able to exploit those businesses in countries with less than stringent financial security requirements.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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