International Cybercriminals, with the help of two dozen regular citizens, stole $415,000 from a bank account that belongs to Bullit County, Kentucky last month.

“It’s stolen just the same way as if someone had come and took a .45 [caliber] pistol and held up a teller,” county attorney Walt Sholar told TV station WLKY.

Crazy to think that this stuff still happens on a major scale, but apparently it does.

“A gang based in the former Soviet Union used viruses to secretly take control of computers used by county officials, including the country treasurer and a local judge, according to the Washington Post.”

“Then they secretly re-routed e-mails containing one-time passwords that both the treasurer and the judge would have to use to authorize wire transfers from the account, which belonged to Bullitt County Fiscal Court in Shepherdsville and was used to make payroll.”

On June 22nd, the hackers began making transfers.  Each transfer was under $10,000 so that they would not attract attention while wiring the money to the bank accounts of 25 Americans.

The Americans, who became the hackers’ “Mules”,  were duped after responding to ads for “temporary at-home editing work” on the job placement site CarreerBuilder.com. They were instructed to keep 5% of the earnings and wire the rest into accounts in the Ukraine and Russia.

“One mule found herself out thousands of dollars once Bullitt County got wise to what was happening and its bank started recalling the transfers.”

“County officials stressed that police, fire department and EMS workers would still be paid on time, and that the bank itself, First Federal Savings Bank, was never hacked into or compromised.”

Be extra careful with your information when using a computer people. These things still do happen.

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