Crook versus crook

In a new turn for the books a pair of cybercrooks has posted a phishing kit on hacker forums that lets them steal the data gleaned by those who download and use it, says security operation Imperva.

Imperva says the phishing kit helps crooks set up fake sites purporting to belong to organizations such as banks to dupe personal and financial data from victims.

However, unknown to these hackers, the creators of the kit use a built in back door to harvest all the credentials. While the proxy crooks may find some success before their phishing sites are closed down, the masterminds gets everything without needing to conduct an open campaign.

The cloud-based approach of the kit - developed in Algeria with Arabic tutorials but itself in English - makes it far harder to shut down than normal phishing scams, says Imperva.

In traditional schemes when you take down a server you affect not only the Web page but also the back end data collection capability. In the cloud version, data collection is hosted separately from the sites which means hackers only need to repost the front end in a new location to be back in business.

'Darth Vader' robs US bank

A man wearing a Darth Vader mask and cape robbed a Chase bank branch on Long Island on last week, police said.

The thief entered a branch in Setauket at 11:30 a.m. and demanded money from a teller. But instead of using a light saber, "Darth" threatened the teller with a semiautomatic gun.

The teller gave the robber some cash from the drawer. A customer started to battle Vader inside the bank.

Det. Sgt. William Lamb of the Suffolk County Police Department says, "They got into a bit of a physical altercation. No one was hurt."

The Darth Vader thief, described as between 6 feet and 6 feet 2 inches tall, then took off running. In addition to the mask and cape, he was also wearing camouflage pants. He headed east through the bank's parking lot and then jumped on a bicycle and took off. Witnesses say his cape was waving behind him as he ran.

A witness said, "I thought it was just a joke but I guess he was serious."

Police have not said if Luke Skywalker has offered to help track "Vader" down.

Det. Sgt. Lamb says, "After doing this for 28 years, nothing surprises me anymore but this was a unique one."

Australian Foreign Exchange Turnover

For those FX aficionados the Australian Foreign Exchange Committee has just released its April 2010 Semi-Annual Report on Foreign Exchange Turnover


You can access this information on the Reserve Bank of Australia website by clicking HERE.

Bank of Ireland to refund €3 million to ATM users after glitch

Bank of Ireland is refunding around 43,000 ATM users a total of €3 million after a problem with anti-fraud systems saw money incorrectly debited from their accounts.

The bank is making the payments after its internal monitoring processes flagged that ATM users who forgot to take their cash from the machine were still having the money taken from their accounts.

When distracted customers fail to take cash or their cards at ATMs, the machine waits a short while before pulling the money back in with the debited amount automatically credited again.

However, for four years, until October 2009, the installation of anti-fraud measures "resulted in the normal system response of automatically prompting a refund to issue not to occur for these particular transactions" says Bank of Ireland in a statement.

It is now in the process of refunding €1.3 million to 14,000 of its own customers this week and is working with other banks to help get a further €1.7 million to 29,000 non-customers.

The bank says has apologised for the error and has informed the country's Financial Regulator.

About six people per ATM per year leave their cash, card, or both in machines.

Madoff trustee starts gathering $3.6 billion - new facts are being revealed

It is reported that Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee started to gather money from 43 new defendants to pay the victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. In total they demand $3.6 billion from entities tied to Fairfield Greenwich Group which is considered to enable Bernard Madoff to run the fraud for at least 20 years.

Among the most significant defendants are Walter Noel, Jeffrey Tucker and Andres Piedrahita, the Fairfield Greenwich Group co-founders.

The trustee Irving Picard has submitted papers to the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan last week insisting on the fact that the company, its founding partners and two dozen affiliates, among others, represented nearly half of Madoff's reported assets under management, and that they "cannot deny their knowledge of many 'red flags' indicating the likelihood of that fraud," reports the Washington Post.

Picard has provided a 228-page complaint describing in details the relationship of Noel with Bernard Madoff which started in 1989.

"The defendants misled regulators, investors and potential investors, and generally looked the other way, focusing only on self-interest and profit," said Irving Picard.

Fairfield Greenwich has stated that Picard's filing was filled with "false, misleading and rehashed accusations."

“Diaspora Bonds” – Remittances as a new source of development finance?

Nigerian banks can create Diaspora bonds as a financial tool to bridge financing gaps in the country, Vicky Johnston, Senior Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, Moneygram International, has said.

Johnston said this in an interview with newsmen on the sidelines of the Banking Outlook Africa conference 2010 in Johannesburg. She stated that Nigeria, with US$10 billion annual remittances, was well positioned to develop Diaspora bonds to stimulate its economy.

"Diaspora bonds are a mechanism whereby developing countries can borrow from their diaspora community abroad to raise financing," she said. She noted that official aid alone was not adequate to bridge the financing gaps in developing countries

Johnston said that Nigeria was one of the highest receivers of remittances in sub-Saharan Africa and should use this for economic development.

It is being done in Ethiopia and Rwanda at the moment and not many other countries are utilizing it around the world, but it could be an interesting thing for the Nigerian market," Johnston said. Shedding more light on the bonds, she said it was developed when the community of the Diaspora abroad provides money as a source of funds or capital that could be used to help in the financing gaps.

"In other words, we are using the Diaspora abroad who have their natural links to their home country of Nigeria, to bridge financing gaps. When you take debt to export ratio and this is a key measure in terms of sovereignty ratings, and factor into that, the foreign exchange that is derived from the remittance business, you can see a decrease of debt to export ratio," she said. Johnston said similar effect would occur when remittances were factored into current account deficit placing the nation in better stead.

She said Nigerian banks have the potential to become number one in the continent in the future. She explained that remittance business is very large in Africa, with funds coming mainly from the USA, and Canada which account for "at least 50-60 per cent of remittances into Anglophone Africa" .Johnston said other countries from where huge remittances come are the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain. Globally, she said the remittance business was worth about US$330 billion.

Unskilled foreign workers are highest remittance senders

The Philippines National Statistics Office (NSO) says laborers or unskilled overseas Filipino workers were the biggest source of remittances in the country last year.

In a statement, the NSO said laborers or unskilled workers posted the highest cash remittance of P18.03 billion from April to September last year among the different occupation groups. However, this was lower compared to the cash remittance sent home in the same period in 2008 of P19.5 billion.

Cash remittances of professional OFWs during the period amounted to P16.5 billion, higher than the P15.12 billion for the period April to September 2008.

The total remittance sent by OFWs during the period April to September 2009 was estimated at P138.5 billion, down by 2.4 percent compared to the same period in 2008 amounting to P141.9 billion.

Cash sent amounted to P102.5 billion, cash brought home P31.4 billion and remittance in kind, P4.5 billion.

Of the total cash remittance sent for the period April to September 2009, about P78 billion were sent through banks, P12.4 billion through other means, P8.6 billion through door-to-door and P3.5 billion pesos through agency or local office and friends or co-workers.