The month of August marks a much anticipated return to school for both parents and students, but it appears that the subject of education is just as popular in the cybercrime underground this time of year. RSA has observed an increased supply of cybercrime courses, lessons, counseling and tutoring offered to fraudsters in rather official-looking models, mimicking the activity of legitimate schooling
SENIOR FRAUDSTERS OFFER SCHOOLING FOR NEWCOMERS
It has never been uncommon in the underground to see senior actors offer up advice to newbies on how to commit fraud. More recently, seasoned criminals are even willing to share more of their time and expertise to teach willing would-be criminals the ins and outs of cybercrime – for a fee.
RSA has been seeing an increase in ads by established criminals advertising courses they commonly carry out via Skype videoconferencing. To add value, “teachers” are offering interesting fraud courses, following those up with individual tutorials (Q&A sessions) after students join their so-called schools.
Since Fraud-as-a-Service (FaaS) strives to resemble legitimate business models, fraudster trade schools further offer ‘job placement’ for graduates through their many underground connections with other experienced criminals. Interestingly, some of the “teachers” go the extra mile and vouch for students who show “talent” so that they can join the underground communities they would otherwise not be able to access.
Some cybercrime professors even enforce a rigid absentee policy:
- Students must give a 2 hour advanced notice if they cannot attend.
- Students who fail to notify ahead of time are fined 50% of the fee, and rescheduled for the next class.
- Students who fail to pay absentee fees will forfeit the entire deposited fee.
The following section presents some examples of cybercrime schooling curriculums exposed by RSA fraud analysts. Read more via