The two companies fell victim to a phishing attack carried out by the same cyber criminal, this is Evaldas Rimasauskas, a 48-year-old Lithuanian
Online scams can affect anyone, we've said it many times. And so in the trap of phishing have also fallen Google and Facebook. The two companies suffered a more than $100 million attack. This shows that even the biggest companies on the Net are not immune to hackers.
Apparently both companies were scammed by the same man, a Lithuanian cyber criminal. The hacker in question is Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48. Now charged with fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. The man would, in fact, have impersonated Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese software company that has companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook among its clients, in order to make several companies fall into the trap. An investigation by Fortune has shown how, thanks to the sending of false invoices, Evaldas Rimasauskas has accumulated about 100 million dollars from Facebook and Google.
Facebook and Google under attack
Facebook, questioned after the incident, has declared, through its managers, to have recovered most of the stolen money thanks to the collaboration with the police. Also Google has declared to have discovered the trap by itself just in time to recover part of the money and condemn the Lithuanian man. However, the attack demonstrates the exponential growth of phishing in recent months.
How phishing works
Phishing techniques are becoming more and more sophisticated. Before, they acted almost exclusively by exploiting bank and postal accounts. Now they can disguise themselves as small businesses, large corporations, institutions, and even friends and colleagues. They are becoming more and more personalized based on the habits of the victim. In the UK alone, these kinds of attacks have cost consumers over £14 billion. Much of this revenue is untraceable and feeds the cyber criminals' network.