Puerto Rico loses millions in email phishing scam

(Image credit: Pixabay)

Puerto Rico has revealed its government agencies have fallen victim to an online phishing scam that stole millions of dollars.

Reports have claimed that fraudsters attempted to steal over $4 million by hacking into a female employee’s account. Though the authorities have not revealed how much money was actually stolen, over $4.73 million has already been transferred to different accounts by various government agencies since December.

The Puerto Rico government says it is trying to recover the money, with $2.9 million frozen already. 

Puerto Rico Scam

The crime appears to have originated after hackers gained access to the email account of a finance worker at the country's Employee Retirement System. Then, posing as a this employee, the hackers sent emails to various agencies asking them for a change in the bank accounts.

The Industrial Development Company of Puerto Rico sent $63,000 in December and $2.6 million in January, with the Tourism Company also sending $1.5 million in January to accounts located in the US mainland, authorities said.

The fraud was only highlighted when the finance team at the Employee Retirement System informed the officials that they had not received any money. While the local legislators are demanding a probe, the FBI has been involved to understand how the computer of the worker at Employee Retirement System was hacked in the first place. 

Puerto Rico is currently enduring a 13-year long recession and is experiencing a severe financial crisis.

“This is a very serious situation, extremely serious,” Manuel Laboy, executive director of the government-owned Industrial Development Company, told the Associated Press. “We want it to be investigated until the last consequences.”

According to FBI, over 23,000 phishing scams targeting business emails were reported in the United States last year, where hackers stole over $1.7 billion from different victims. The special teams at FBI have been able to recover $300 million that was stolen by getting the account details changed.

Via: AP

Jitendra Soni

Jitendra has been working in the Internet Industry for the last 7 years now and has written about a wide range of topics including gadgets, smartphones, reviews, games, software, apps, deep tech, AI, and consumer electronics.  

Latest in Security
China
Notorious Chinese hackers FamousSparrow allegedly target US financial firms
A digital representation of a lock
NYU website defaced as hacker leaks info on a million students
NHS
NHS IT supplier hit with major fine following ransomware attack
A digital representation of blockchain.
Malicious npm packages use devious backdoors to target users
Data leak
Top home hardware firm data leak could see millions of customers affected
Representational image depecting cybersecurity protection
Third-party security issues could be the biggest threat facing your business
Latest in News
An image of the Nintendo Switch 2
Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders will start on April 2 according to Best Buy Canada
Person printing
Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 update exorcises possessed printers that spewed out pages of random characters
Pro-Ject A1.2 in black, playing a vinyl record in a hi-fi listening room
Pro-Ject's new fully-automatic turntable could be the buy of Record Store Day 2025
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet reportedly won't release until after 2026, as Neil Druckmann says that staff 'are playing it at the office' right now - but I don't think I can wait that long
Screenshot from action RPG soulslike Lies of P
Lies of P Overture won't elaborate on the game's eyebrow-raising post-credits twist, and I think that's good news
Nintendo Switch 2
The Switch 2 launching with a Mario Kart game 'is very unlike Nintendo' compared to the original Switch releasing with Breath of the Wild, says former marketing leads: 'That's what's gonna make you want to buy the new hardware'