The SVB collapse is being exploited by scammers

Date:
Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:30:18 +0000

Description:
As chaos takes hold following collapse of Silicon Valley Bank favored by tech startups, cybercriminals are making hay.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which has rocked the financial world, is now inevitably being exploited by cybercriminals.

Threat actors are clamoring to gain from the downfall, with fake domains
being registered resembling SVB, phishing pages created and attacks on business email addresses.

The aim is to steal money directly, or otherwise to steal valuable data and spread malware that will eventually lead to financial rewards for criminals via dark web sales or by blackmailing victims in a similar vain to ransomware . Multiple scams

SVB, once the 16th largest bank in the US and depended upon by almost half of all venture-back tech startups, collapsed on March 10 after customers
withdrew their funds at an unsustainable rate. The move was triggered by the poor economic conditions that forced tech firms to shore up their finances.

It is the second-largest bank failure in US history, and has affected those
in many industries, including those in tech, healthcare, private equity and even the wine industry. read more

Healthcare and finance are at serious risk with their cloud adoption

Google Cloud is making changes to help startups grow

Mozilla is offering $35 million to responsible startups

In a report by Johannes Ullrich, Dean of Research for SANS Technology Institute, numerous suspicious domains have been registered in the wake of
the incident, such as login-svb.com and svbbailout.com.

Cyber intelligence firm Cyble also found in its report the domains
svbdebt.com and svbclaims.net, among others. These were registered on the
very same day SVB went down, and are perpetrating cryptocurrency scams by falsely claiming that SVB is reimbursing its customers with USDCpay-outs.

Other crypto scams are pretending to be affiliated with Circle, the payments firm that manages USDC payments and had $3.3 billion in SVB, taking advantage of the uncertainty over the firms liquidity now.

Domains such as redeemed-circle.com and circle-reserves.com have been
created, and are merely out to steal wallets and sensitive data.

Ullrich also warned that threat actors will likely attempt to contact those affected by the collapse, under the guise of offering support, legal
services, loans or similar.

An attack type that has already taken place is called a business email compromise (BEC). Scammers are pretending to be former SVB customers and telling their customers in turn that they need to send any payments that may be incoming to a new bank account, which is actually controlled by the threat actor.

Phishing scams are also being run, with the domain cash4svb.com asking for
SVB customer contact info under the pretense of being an investment group and offering cash to them.

The advice to SVB customers is to look out for suspicious emails and domains related to SVB, especially those mentioned changes in bank details. Confirm payment changes by phone if possible rather than email, as email accounts can be hijacked by threat actors.

The FDIC and US Treasury have also issued advice to those affected by the SVB collapse. Here are the best secure email providers to help protect you



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/the-svb-collapse-is-being-exploited-by-scammers


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)