Inbox - Spam bait for a scam attempt? "I have a new Yahoo! email address" trisha.fergerson518@yahoo.com
2 identical emails from this sender this morning - scammers tend to use yahoo email accounts. Do not know the person so why are we receiving it!
----- Original Message -----
To:
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 1:34 AM
Subject: I have a new Yahoo! email address
.
Hi, I wanted to let you know that I have a brand new Yahoo! email address; trisha.fergerson518@yahoo.com. Please update your address book and send me emails at this new address from now on. Thanks!
trisha fergerson
October was a successful month for law enforment agencies on both sides of the Atlantic
Law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe are tracking down international cyber criminals who stole
$70 million (£44 million) by using a computer virus that captured passwords and account details.
Ukrainian authorities have detained five people thought to have participated in some of the thefts
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation said Operation Trident Breach began in May 2009 when agents in Nebraska, were alerted to some of the stolen money, which was flowing in bulk payments to 46 bank accounts around the United States.
.
Ukrainian authorities have detained five people thought to have participated in some of the thefts and Ukraine has executed eight search warrants in the ongoing investigation.
.
Gordon Snow, the FBI's assistant director in charge of the cyber division, said police agencies overseas were instrumental in finding criminals who designed the malicious software, known as the Zeus Trojan, others who used it and still others called "money mules," who transferred the stolen funds to havens as distant as Hong Kong, Singapore and Cyprus.
.
Many of the victims were small- and medium-sized businesses that do not have the money to invest in high-level computer security.
.
On Thursday, 37 people were charged in papers unsealed in federal court in Manhattan with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering, false identification use and passport fraud for their roles in the invasion of dozens of victims' accounts. Fifty-five have been charged in state court in Manhattan.
.
The Trojan programme would gain access to the computer when a victim clicked on a link or opened a file attached to a seemingly legitimate email message.
.
It comes days after British police arrested 19 people for stealing up to £6 million from bank accounts in the UK after infecting computers with the Zeus virus
.
How taste for high life led public schoolboy to set up multi-million pound internet crime site
How taste for high life led public schoolboy to set up multi-million pound internet crime site - Telegraph
It was the biggest criminal website British police had ever uncovered, with a membership comprising cyber villains from across the globe.
Nick Webber ran the GhostMarket.Net website which sold stolen credit card details and offered online tutorials in a range of lucrative online scams
Thousands of criminals were logging on to a 'cyber supermarket' where they could shop for stolen credit card details or learn how to manufacture illegal drugs - and even bombs.
At its peak GhostMarket. Net had 8,500 members who bought and sold credit cards and bank account information worth millions of pounds and traded advice on committing and getting away with crimes.
The information was used to rip off banks and retailers anywhere around the world. Innocent shoppers using the internet would find their pin numbers and passwords copied by cyber criminals who had infected home computers using special software. The details were then sold and modified on GhostMarket.
But what astonished police was the discovery that the mastermind behind GhostMarket was not some hardened criminal - but a shy public schoolboy, who at the time of his arrest had only just turned 18.
Last week Nick Webber, whose father was a senior politician in Guernsey, pleaded guilty to a series of fraud offences and has been told he faces a lengthy jail sentence. Webber's conviction follows a warning last month by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met police commissioner, that Britain is facing a rising tide of online crime.
Today The Sunday Telegraph can reveal how Webber, with a brilliant talent for computers, transformed himself from failing A level student to master criminal - and how his developing taste for the high life finally led to his downfall.
It was on Oct 29 last year that the law finally caught up with Webber. He had begun living in London's most expensive hotels, paying the bills using 'compromised' credit cards.
He took to wearing designer clothes, posing for photographs with thousands of euros laid out in front of him or else next to a flashy four by four - even though he has never passed his driving test.
But while staying in the Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly apparently in its £1,600 a night penthouse suite - with views of Green Park and the London Eye beyond - the receptionist there became suspicious that an 18-year-old Webber was the genuine owner of the credit card he was using. Police were called and duly arrested Webber on suspicion of credit card fraud.
Detectives found on his laptop the details of 100,000 credit cards, representing a potential loss to credit card companies of as much as £12 million.
They also found business cards Webber had had printed with his online moniker N2C and GhostMarket emblazoned on them.
Officers from the Met Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), specially set up to track down cyber criminals, and who had been pursuing GhostMarket for some time, had finally found their Mr Big. Except that to their astonishment they found he was a teenager.
"The receptionist who called us didn't think this 18-year-old was the genuine credit card holder. She had this teenager paying on a credit card for a £1,600 a night suite," said a senior police source.
"He was moving around five or six high end Mayfair hotels. He had no job but he had this talent for computers and he used it to create the biggest English speaking criminal internet forum we have ever found on the web."
Despite his arrest Webber didn't stop there. Released on bail, he fled to Majorca where he continued for the next few months to live in five star hotels, still running GhostMarket using a laptop and mobile phone while all the time taunting the police.
"To be a Legend Carder u gotta be a ghost" he wrote on one website, adding the sign off: "F*** the Police!"
He even discussed on one log the possibility of 'blowing up' an officer from PCeU involved in the inquiry in the naive hope it might curtail his prosecution.
Webber finally returned to Britain in January this year - it is not clear why but is thought to be linked to GhostMarket's operation - and was arrested at Gatwick airport, eventually pleading guilty last week in Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to make or supply articles for use in fraud and encouraging or assisting offences.
Two older accomplices, whom Webber had recruited online, including a young woman from Swansea, also pleaded guilty to offences connected with GhostMarket.
Webber, now 19, was remanded in custody and has been warned by Judge John Price he faces 'a substantial period of imprisonment' when he is sentenced in February.
Webber's descent into a life of crime has puzzled his family. He was born in Guernsey into a privileged background. His father Anthony, a financial and political consultant, was a member of Guernsey's parliament for 13 years while his mother Susan was a senior official in the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. There is even a family crest of two crossed knives and a fleur de lys set against a blue background.
Mr Webber, contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, admitted his son - the middle of three boys - had had a difficult last few years after he left his mother for another woman.
Mrs Webber, who has since remarried, took her children to England to live, enrolling her son first at Woodcote House, an £18,000 a year prep school in Surrey.
In 2005 he moved to the leading public school, Bradfield College, which charges boarders £9,500 a term.
"He has always been super brilliant at computers but it never occurred to me anything like this would happen," said Mr Webber.
"I think what has happened is Nicholas has got involved in using his skills and he has shown off. He always helped my friends with their computers.
"I can't remember when I bought him his first computer but he would have had computers from a very early age, certainly from at least nine or 10 and possibly before then."
Peter Roberts, Bradfield College's headmaster, said Webber had been "happily settled" at his school and described him as a "loyal member of the community".
Mr Roberts added: "Although no angel there was nothing about his disciplinary record at Bradfield to suggest any cause for concern for the future."
From Bradfield, Webber enrolled in September 2008 at Havant College, a state sixth form college, near his mother's home in Southsea in Hampshire.
He was studying four A-levels, including computing and information technology. But with his mother suffering a serious illness and his father largely absent from his life, police believe Webber began dabbling in fraudulent credit cards and then looked to the internet to see how he could 'develop his talent'.
Finding no English-language crime forum available, Webber started his own, using his computer hacking and internet design skills - some self-taught; some learnt at school. Astonishingly, the website gathered momentum.
It had a sophisticated design and even a kind of mission statement on its front page which promised: "A committed website for Carders" - a reference to credit card fraud - and followed by "A new era to virtual marketing."
Webber had set up five different categories or menus on GhostMarket. One was for general computer hacking; another for stolen and compromised credit cards; a third for banking fraud and a fourth for 'other' criminal activities such as how to make the illegal, highly addictive drug crystal meth.
A fifth forum was a private trading area which criminals could access and do deals such as selling credit card details hacked via the internet.
Webber oversaw it all. "He was facilitating a supermarket site for criminals," said the police source, "He was about 17 when he started it, at about the same time he left boarding school. He began small, inviting in friends. But over a period of 18 months it got up to 8,500 members.
"Although he was in many ways just a normal teenage kid - he wore jeans; he was pretty shy - he also showed a remarkable level of maturity to be able to run this website. He had this online persona that was pretty arrogant. In GhostMarket he was the king. It was his empire. But in real life he wouldn't say boo to a goose."
With GhostMarket up and running, Webber had begun skipping his studies at Havant College. By Oct 2009, a week or two before his arrest Webber was asked to leave because his attendance record was so poor. "Nick was a reasonably able student who lacked the commitment to pursue his studies seriously," said Havant's principal John McDougall.
With his mother ill - she attended court last week in a wheelchair - Webber left home, using credit card details stolen or copied from the internet to fund an increasingly lavish lifestyle.
He began spending a small fortune on designer clothes or else gadgets, including buying new and more powerful laptops.
The business cards he had had printed with his online moniker N2C were a sign of his growing confidence - what his father calls 'bravado' - but finally led to his downfall.
"What happened to Nicholas has been a big shock to both his mother and to me," said Mr Webber, "In a very short period of time things went wrong. He is a delightful son in a lot of respects.
"He is very sporty and very loving. He is generally a very good mannered person but quiet by nature.
"He was never flamboyant except that in the last couple of years this bravado side has come out. I just wish I had been in a position to have some positive influence.
"He is the sort of person that the security services should be employing. His skills are such he could do a lot of things but the very sad thing about this is it is going to affect his future career."
trisha fergerson
October was a successful month for law enforment agencies on both sides of the Atlantic
Law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe are tracking down international cyber criminals who stole
$70 million (£44 million) by using a computer virus that captured passwords and account details.
Ukrainian authorities have detained five people thought to have participated in some of the thefts
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation said Operation Trident Breach began in May 2009 when agents in Nebraska, were alerted to some of the stolen money, which was flowing in bulk payments to 46 bank accounts around the United States.
.
Ukrainian authorities have detained five people thought to have participated in some of the thefts and Ukraine has executed eight search warrants in the ongoing investigation.
.
Gordon Snow, the FBI's assistant director in charge of the cyber division, said police agencies overseas were instrumental in finding criminals who designed the malicious software, known as the Zeus Trojan, others who used it and still others called "money mules," who transferred the stolen funds to havens as distant as Hong Kong, Singapore and Cyprus.
.
Many of the victims were small- and medium-sized businesses that do not have the money to invest in high-level computer security.
.
On Thursday, 37 people were charged in papers unsealed in federal court in Manhattan with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering, false identification use and passport fraud for their roles in the invasion of dozens of victims' accounts. Fifty-five have been charged in state court in Manhattan.
.
The Trojan programme would gain access to the computer when a victim clicked on a link or opened a file attached to a seemingly legitimate email message.
.
It comes days after British police arrested 19 people for stealing up to £6 million from bank accounts in the UK after infecting computers with the Zeus virus
.
How taste for high life led public schoolboy to set up multi-million pound internet crime site
How taste for high life led public schoolboy to set up multi-million pound internet crime site - Telegraph
It was the biggest criminal website British police had ever uncovered, with a membership comprising cyber villains from across the globe.
Nick Webber ran the GhostMarket.Net website which sold stolen credit card details and offered online tutorials in a range of lucrative online scams
Thousands of criminals were logging on to a 'cyber supermarket' where they could shop for stolen credit card details or learn how to manufacture illegal drugs - and even bombs.
At its peak GhostMarket. Net had 8,500 members who bought and sold credit cards and bank account information worth millions of pounds and traded advice on committing and getting away with crimes.
The information was used to rip off banks and retailers anywhere around the world. Innocent shoppers using the internet would find their pin numbers and passwords copied by cyber criminals who had infected home computers using special software. The details were then sold and modified on GhostMarket.
But what astonished police was the discovery that the mastermind behind GhostMarket was not some hardened criminal - but a shy public schoolboy, who at the time of his arrest had only just turned 18.
Last week Nick Webber, whose father was a senior politician in Guernsey, pleaded guilty to a series of fraud offences and has been told he faces a lengthy jail sentence. Webber's conviction follows a warning last month by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met police commissioner, that Britain is facing a rising tide of online crime.
Today The Sunday Telegraph can reveal how Webber, with a brilliant talent for computers, transformed himself from failing A level student to master criminal - and how his developing taste for the high life finally led to his downfall.
It was on Oct 29 last year that the law finally caught up with Webber. He had begun living in London's most expensive hotels, paying the bills using 'compromised' credit cards.
He took to wearing designer clothes, posing for photographs with thousands of euros laid out in front of him or else next to a flashy four by four - even though he has never passed his driving test.
But while staying in the Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly apparently in its £1,600 a night penthouse suite - with views of Green Park and the London Eye beyond - the receptionist there became suspicious that an 18-year-old Webber was the genuine owner of the credit card he was using. Police were called and duly arrested Webber on suspicion of credit card fraud.
Detectives found on his laptop the details of 100,000 credit cards, representing a potential loss to credit card companies of as much as £12 million.
They also found business cards Webber had had printed with his online moniker N2C and GhostMarket emblazoned on them.
Officers from the Met Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), specially set up to track down cyber criminals, and who had been pursuing GhostMarket for some time, had finally found their Mr Big. Except that to their astonishment they found he was a teenager.
"The receptionist who called us didn't think this 18-year-old was the genuine credit card holder. She had this teenager paying on a credit card for a £1,600 a night suite," said a senior police source.
"He was moving around five or six high end Mayfair hotels. He had no job but he had this talent for computers and he used it to create the biggest English speaking criminal internet forum we have ever found on the web."
Despite his arrest Webber didn't stop there. Released on bail, he fled to Majorca where he continued for the next few months to live in five star hotels, still running GhostMarket using a laptop and mobile phone while all the time taunting the police.
"To be a Legend Carder u gotta be a ghost" he wrote on one website, adding the sign off: "F*** the Police!"
He even discussed on one log the possibility of 'blowing up' an officer from PCeU involved in the inquiry in the naive hope it might curtail his prosecution.
Webber finally returned to Britain in January this year - it is not clear why but is thought to be linked to GhostMarket's operation - and was arrested at Gatwick airport, eventually pleading guilty last week in Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to make or supply articles for use in fraud and encouraging or assisting offences.
Two older accomplices, whom Webber had recruited online, including a young woman from Swansea, also pleaded guilty to offences connected with GhostMarket.
Webber, now 19, was remanded in custody and has been warned by Judge John Price he faces 'a substantial period of imprisonment' when he is sentenced in February.
Webber's descent into a life of crime has puzzled his family. He was born in Guernsey into a privileged background. His father Anthony, a financial and political consultant, was a member of Guernsey's parliament for 13 years while his mother Susan was a senior official in the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. There is even a family crest of two crossed knives and a fleur de lys set against a blue background.
Mr Webber, contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, admitted his son - the middle of three boys - had had a difficult last few years after he left his mother for another woman.
Mrs Webber, who has since remarried, took her children to England to live, enrolling her son first at Woodcote House, an £18,000 a year prep school in Surrey.
In 2005 he moved to the leading public school, Bradfield College, which charges boarders £9,500 a term.
"He has always been super brilliant at computers but it never occurred to me anything like this would happen," said Mr Webber.
"I think what has happened is Nicholas has got involved in using his skills and he has shown off. He always helped my friends with their computers.
"I can't remember when I bought him his first computer but he would have had computers from a very early age, certainly from at least nine or 10 and possibly before then."
Peter Roberts, Bradfield College's headmaster, said Webber had been "happily settled" at his school and described him as a "loyal member of the community".
Mr Roberts added: "Although no angel there was nothing about his disciplinary record at Bradfield to suggest any cause for concern for the future."
From Bradfield, Webber enrolled in September 2008 at Havant College, a state sixth form college, near his mother's home in Southsea in Hampshire.
He was studying four A-levels, including computing and information technology. But with his mother suffering a serious illness and his father largely absent from his life, police believe Webber began dabbling in fraudulent credit cards and then looked to the internet to see how he could 'develop his talent'.
Finding no English-language crime forum available, Webber started his own, using his computer hacking and internet design skills - some self-taught; some learnt at school. Astonishingly, the website gathered momentum.
It had a sophisticated design and even a kind of mission statement on its front page which promised: "A committed website for Carders" - a reference to credit card fraud - and followed by "A new era to virtual marketing."
Webber had set up five different categories or menus on GhostMarket. One was for general computer hacking; another for stolen and compromised credit cards; a third for banking fraud and a fourth for 'other' criminal activities such as how to make the illegal, highly addictive drug crystal meth.
A fifth forum was a private trading area which criminals could access and do deals such as selling credit card details hacked via the internet.
Webber oversaw it all. "He was facilitating a supermarket site for criminals," said the police source, "He was about 17 when he started it, at about the same time he left boarding school. He began small, inviting in friends. But over a period of 18 months it got up to 8,500 members.
"Although he was in many ways just a normal teenage kid - he wore jeans; he was pretty shy - he also showed a remarkable level of maturity to be able to run this website. He had this online persona that was pretty arrogant. In GhostMarket he was the king. It was his empire. But in real life he wouldn't say boo to a goose."
With GhostMarket up and running, Webber had begun skipping his studies at Havant College. By Oct 2009, a week or two before his arrest Webber was asked to leave because his attendance record was so poor. "Nick was a reasonably able student who lacked the commitment to pursue his studies seriously," said Havant's principal John McDougall.
With his mother ill - she attended court last week in a wheelchair - Webber left home, using credit card details stolen or copied from the internet to fund an increasingly lavish lifestyle.
He began spending a small fortune on designer clothes or else gadgets, including buying new and more powerful laptops.
The business cards he had had printed with his online moniker N2C were a sign of his growing confidence - what his father calls 'bravado' - but finally led to his downfall.
"What happened to Nicholas has been a big shock to both his mother and to me," said Mr Webber, "In a very short period of time things went wrong. He is a delightful son in a lot of respects.
"He is very sporty and very loving. He is generally a very good mannered person but quiet by nature.
"He was never flamboyant except that in the last couple of years this bravado side has come out. I just wish I had been in a position to have some positive influence.
"He is the sort of person that the security services should be employing. His skills are such he could do a lot of things but the very sad thing about this is it is going to affect his future career."
