Cyber-crooks sting South Africa for £13m

A cyber-crime syndicate is believed to have defrauded the South African government of more than £12.8m in a series of spyware frauds.

The fraud went undetected for three years.

The fraudsters appeared to use a sophisticated combination of attacks that consisted of a physical device and a malware component, as witnessed by the fact they have been getting away with their crimes for nigh on three years, according to Tier-3.

Geoff Sweeney, chief technology officer at IT security vendor Tier-3, warned that, in common with more sophisticated IT security attacks, frauds of this nature are very difficult to stop using a traditional single line of defence.

"Companies need to rethink their strategy in the light of the increasing sophistication on the part of the fraudsters," he said.