A hacker has been taken into custody by the Court of Bucharest, under the charge that he is part of a group that operates in the municipality of Bucharest and Arges and Constanta counties, and who launched phishing-type attacks against banking institutions in Romania and Italy and some US companies.
On March 29, DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism) prosecutors – the central structure, together with Judicial police officers from the Service for Combating Crime Information, made seven house searches in the municipality of Bucharest area and Arges and Constanta counties, during which laptops, electronic storage devices, mobile phones, bank cards and about 150,000 euros were found and seized.
Following the searches, investigators arrested the defendant S.A.A., for setting up an organised crime group, fraudulently and repeatedly conducting financial operations, repeated forgery and illegal access to computer information system. Subsequently, he was taken into custody for 30 days, following a decision of the Bucharest Court.
According to a DIICOT press release sent on Monday to AGERPRES, from 2016 to March 2017, an organized crime group specializing in computer-related crimes operated in Bucharest and Arges and Constanta counties, .
The source mentions that, following the investigations, the group members were found to have launched phishing attacks against banking institutions in Romania and Italy and some US companies, each member having clear attributions in conducting the criminal activity.
“Thus, one of the group members created fictitious web pages used to launch attacks, another suspect procured servers for hosting and routing Internet traffic, in order to conceal the true IP connection addresses, while another part of the group was in charge with the use of bank cards obtained from phishing, by buying goods online,” the prosecutors argue.
The operation received speciality support from Special Operations Direction, Agerpres informs.
Experts emphasize that although the default IP address of the gateway (192.168.1.1) is usually pre-assigned by internet service providers, however, a user can configure it as needed. They say it is often changed to prevent bad guys from accessing the admin panel, to prevent DDoS attacks, or just to add an extra layer of security.
Accessing the router admin through 192.168.1.1 address will allow users to change the settings and configurations that the router software provides. “Check the address you input not to confuse it with 192.168.l.l ,” the cyber security experts advice.
They suggest those interested in protecting their WiFi network to prevent unauthorized access t o follow basic rules such as: enabling WPA2 encryption, setting up strong password, disabling WPS adds more security since it is an old method of synchronization between networks, enable MAC-address filtering and to update their router firmware occasionally.
