News

Cyber thefts cost bunker firm $1m

Source: Casulaties

June 15th 2017

Scammers hit a Malaysia-based company after embedding Spyware in its computers.

A bunker company in Malaysia claims to have been the victim of scammers who extracted private information and charged the company $1m.

Gray Page reports that the owner of the unnamed company told the police it had been defrauded MYR 4.5m ($1.05m).

The bunkering company filed two reports to the local police on 8 and 10 June, Malaysia’s national news agency BERNAMA reports, citing a police chief.

A spam e-mail was sent to the company by an international syndicate, which set up an e-mail account similar to the Singaporean company it gets its oil from.

According to local reports, Malaysian police believe the scammers installed Spyware in the bunkering company’s computer and read e-mail exchanges between the company and its supplier.

This is how they managed to create a fake e-mail pretending to be the supplier and requesting the payment of the money to a bank in the US.

The complainant only became aware of the fraud after the real supplier contacted him for payment.

The shipping industry has started paying more attention to cyber-crime over the past 12 months.

Many organizations have geared up efforts to tackle the issue while the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) is leading a co-ordinated effort to develop specific cyber-security guidelines.