"Fraudulent Unemployment, COVID-19 Relief Claims Earn BEC Gang Millions"

An infamous business email compromise (BEC) gang called Scattered Canary has submitted hundreds of fraudulent claims with state-level U.S. unemployment websites and coronavirus relief funds.  The cybercriminals may have made millions so far from the fraudulent activity.  Scattered Canary is a highly organized Nigerian cyber gang that employs dozens of threat actors to target U.S. government institutions and enterprise organizations.  Since April 29th, Scattered Canary has filed more than 200 fraudulent claims on the online unemployment websites of 8 U.S. states.  They sent 174 fraudulent claims with the state of Washington, and 17 fraudulent claims with the state of Massachusetts. So far, the gang has targeted the unemployment websites of Florida, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Wyoming, and Washington.  Recently, on May 17th, researchers discovered that Scattered Canary filed its first two unemployment claims on Hawaii's Department of Labor and Industrial Relations website.  The researchers believe that the group is setting their sights on Hawaii as their next target of fraudulent unemployment claims.  The threat group also filed at least 82 fraudulent claims for the Covid-19 relief fund between April 15 and April 29, using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-backed relief fund website to process claims from individuals who weren't required to file tax returns. Of these filed claims, at least 30 were accepted and paid out by the IRS so far.

Threatpost reports: "Fraudulent Unemployment, COVID-19 Relief Claims Earn BEC Gang Millions"