A Nigerian national is behind numerous cyber attacks targeting companies and personal computers in the last four months.
An Israeli technology company, Check Point Software, says it has notified law enforcement officers in Nigeria and internationally about the individual, who according to cyber security experts uses a malware called NetWire.
The malware is a remote access Trojan which allows full control over infected machines and Hawkeye which is a key logging program.
This enables harvesting of a variety of information from infected machines, such as details on the companies’ operations, assets and intellectual property.
These can have a value far greater than the thousands of dollars obtained by fraud.
Over 4,000 globally have been targeted by cyber attacks which aim to infect networks, steal data and commit fraud in the last four months.
Check Point further reveals that the unnamed attacker works on his own.
“On his social media accounts, he uses the motto: ‘get rich or die trying’. His attack campaign uses fraudulent emails which appear to originate from oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco, the world’s second largest daily oil producer, targeting financial staff within companies to trick them into revealing company bank details, or open the email’s malware-infected attachment,” Check Point says in a press release.
Check Point’s findings come at a time when America’s FBI has reported a 270 percent increase in victims of cyber attack since the start of 2016, costing organisations globally over US $3 billion from 2013 to 2016.