Cyber-fraudsters strike gold at South African government

The South African government has lost more than £12m (199m Rand) over the last three years thanks to a cybercrime syndicate using spyware. The scam has been running since 2005 and is still going on despite the arrest of 32 people. Thieves have targetted various government departments in four provinces. A number of civil …

[Dennis]

419 anyone?

I'm a clerk in a bank in South Africa and I've found an account that holds 137m Rand (out of the 199m Rand) that was stolen by a group of hackers. They have now been arrested and are unable to recover their proceeds.

I know you are a trustworthy person and I need your help to get this money out of the country. If you help me I will give you a quarter of the money (34m Rand).

Sadly I am only a humble bank clerk and cannot afford the set up the necessary accounts and secure the required paperwork to get this money out of the county. Please send me £1,450 to cover the legal fees.

[Brandon Greene]

Corrupt government officials?

in South Africa? Surely not!

Mines the one with a moldy expired South African passport in the pocket.

[Adrian Hancock]

What piece of kit? keelog?

"..to fix a small piece of kit the size of a memory stick to PCs.."

The only thing I can think of is the "keelog" device, which is a tiny little inline plug which sits between a PS/2 keyboard and the PS/2 plug on the PC, and contains a microcontroller which saves (up to 32k I think, maybe more) of keystrokes in NVRAM.. pretty creepy, if you ask me! They should switch to USB keyboards!

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Adrian Hancock

Actually, they come up to a few meg now.. and you can get USB ones. Just keep in mind that you should only use them to recover work in the event that your computer crashes before you can save anything ;o)

[tony trolle]

@ Adrian Hancock (II)

the USB ones which go inside the PC are harder to find but the standard PS/2 with 2 meg is $199

Also the version shaped like a ferite slug (balum) is sooo cooool.

Nearly forgot; the hacked keyboard itself with the chip built in from $150.

[JP Strauss]

Installed devices on the computers?

I didn't even know our government employed people who know how computers work.

[Anthony]

devices

We have several USB dongles that sit inside the machine on little daughter boards, totally invisible to the user but highly visible to the techie who takes the side off the case.

Surely they have an IT department who at least every now and then opens a machine to see what's inside?

[JP Strauss]

@ Anthony

Maintenence is such a British, imperialistic concept. We will have none of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

South African civil servants sacked?

It would be a cold day in hell before the South African government fires any civil servant for anything. Incompetence and dishonesty are what make the wheels of SA's economy grind away into iron filings.

Paris 'cause she is about as competent as a South African simple serpent.

[Anonymous Coward]

When in doubt ...

hit it with a hammer. If it still doesn't work afterwards, call in the IT department!

[William]

news to me

i bloody live in SA this is the first time i hear of this :P guess they keeping it secret hahah

i tend to agree... when did SA start employing people that can use computers?