Mail Hacking/ Change Of Bank Account

Air Cooling Systems

April, 2021

An importer in India delivered air conditioner and its spare components to a reputable company whose shareholder is a prominent player in India's electronics industry.
 
Exporter filed a claim with the foreign insurance company after Importer missed his payment deadlines.
 
A renowned Chinese company is the exporter that provides branded air conditioners globally.
 
MNS contacted Importer who explained the issues behind the non-payment. According to the Importer, there was a hacking issue in both Exporter and Importers mail IDs and Importer remitted a sum of approx. 2 Millions USD to the hacker’s account in USA, after receiving formal documentation on the exporter’s letterhead duly sealed though were obtained from some previous email attachments. All the Emails received from the fraudster used the domain name of Exporter - which can be easily overlooked (example: xyz@abc- home.com & [email protected]) and the subject matter of the email was accurate and matched with details available with Importer. The said emails have identical content to the original emails actually sent by Exporter, showing Fraudster accessed to the Exporter emails by bcc or hacking. The hacker also used the rubber stamp of the Exporter probably extracted from some previous email attachments.
 
It is also observed that the hacker has played a double game and the responses to the exporter’s legitimate email IDs were shot from another similar domain he registered which was very similar to the Importer’s domain (example: [email protected] & [email protected]) with fabricated SWIFT copies.