How hackers stole $1 million fund meant for Israeli startup
Researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point have revealed how hackers stole $1 million seed funding sent by a Chinese venture capital firm to an Israeli start-up.
The Chinese venture capital firm was alerted by their bank earlier this year that there was an issue with one of their recent wire transactions. A few days later, the Israeli start-up realised they have not received their funding. Both sides got on the phone and quickly found out that their money was stolen.
Once both sides realised the money was gone, they also noticed something strange going on with the emails between the two parties, as some of the emails were modified and some were not even written by them. At this point, the CEO of the Israeli start-up engaged Check Point Incidence Response Team (CP IRT) to investigate the fraudulent money transfer. What started as a normal Business Email Compromise (BEC) quickly turned into something else, Matan Ben David, Incident Response Analyst at Check Point, wrote in a report on Thursday.
