Nigerian, Indonesian Hackers Hooked in Corporate Theft Scheme

The National Police arrested six alleged hackers accused of accessing corporate e-mail accounts and stealing some Rp 5 billion ($440,000) from Indonesian companies, police said on Sunday.

“We have arrested six people suspected of hijacking e-mail accounts,” said a source at the National Police cybercrimes unit who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press. “Five people are Indonesian and one person is Nigerian. We apprehended them in the Jabodetabek area and in Malang, East Java, last week.”

The group reportedly broke into corporate e-mail accounts and, while impersonating the company’s owner, tricked others into transferring some Rp 5 billion into their accounts.

Police were tightlipped on the hackers’ identities or the name of the defrauded company on Sunday.

“Just be patient, we have not exposed it yet because the people we arrested are just the operators,” National Police special crimes director Brig. Gen. Arief Sulistyanto said. “We are still developing the case.”

Indonesia is second only to China in the amount of cyber-attack traffic reported by monitors Akamai Technologies. The country booked 21 percent of the world’s cyber attacks in the first quarter of 2013 despite the country’s low internet penetration outside major metropolitan areas.

Indonesian hackers have used their skills for everything from hacking the websites of hard-line Islamists to defacing hundreds of sites during an odd “cyber war” with hackers in Bangladesh. When 22-year-old Wildan Yani S. Hari hacked the site of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the National Police allegedly offered the self-taught Internet cafe owner a job.

Indonesian hackers have also used their skills to fund domestic terrorism, police said.

Anti-terrorism police busted an alleged terrorist ring using hackers to raise money for a militants operating around Poso, Central Sulawesi. One hacker, Rizki Gunawan, allegedly took in some Rp 8 billion by hacking sites, sending the funds to Indonesian terrorists in Central Sulawesi and Solo.



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