Pakistan Arrests 21 in ‘Heartsender’ Malware Service
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Summary
Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) has arrested 21 individuals alleged to have been involved with the operations of “Heartsender” for more than a decade.
The group was behind phishing attacks that inflicted more than $50m in losses in the US alone, with European authorities investigating a further 63 cases.
The FBI previously described Heartsender as “a cybercrime university that empowered fraudsters globally”.
In addition to its spam and malware delivery service, the group also fooled users into believing their kits were “Fully Un-Detectable” from security services.
The operation’s leaders were named as Rameez Shahzad, who fronted operations under the name WeCodeSolutions, and Muhammad Aslam, both of whom were detained in the latest round of arrests.
The pair, along with several other individuals, had been named and shamed over poor operational security by KrebsOnSecurity in 2021.