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The government of German province North Rhine-Westphalia has reportedly lost tens of millions of euros to a phishing operation concerning its coronavirus emergency aid funding according to media reports.
The modus-operandi
Cybercriminals had created multiple copies of the NRW Ministry of Economic Affair’s official website that had been set up to collect applications for the aid and had distributed the links through email campaigns.
Users who believed the sites to be real had submitted applications for the Covid-19 aid on the fraudulent websites thus unknowingly providing access to their data to cybercriminals. The miscreants had then filed applications on the original website using this data, successfully redirecting funds to their accounts.
The scam had been going on till three weeks until April 9 when authorities took notice of the fake website. At least 3500 applications were redirected to fraudulent websites as per a report by German newspaper Handelsblatt.
By then, the police received 576 official fraud reports, with payments ranging from €9,000 to €25,000. By this calculation, the government may have lost between €31 to €100 million to these fraudulent transactions. The scam was successful as the website did not ask for any scanned copies of IDs for verification, the report said.
Course of action
The NRW Ministry had then temporarily stopped the aid and had taken down the website launching a criminal investigation into the fraud.
“Payment of the #NRWSoforthilfe2020 stopped for the time being. After first indications of fake websites, including in search engines, the Ministry of Economic Affairs filed a criminal complaint on Tuesday. We keep you informed,” The NRW Ministry of Economy had tweeted from their official account.
The website was back up on April 17 with better security protocols while payouts will begin this week, it had said.
“The application page is activated again. But: Beware of wrong URLs! Use only the websites mentioned to apply for emergency aid,” the Ministry said in a tweet.
“Only transfers to accounts that are known to the tax office will be initiated,” it further said.
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