An international law enforcement operation, codenamed 'First Light 2022,' has seized 50 million dollars and arrested thousands of people involved in social engineering scams worldwide.
The operation was led by Interpol with the assistance of police in 76 countries and focused on social engineering crimes involving telephone deception, romance scams, business email compromise (BEC) scams, and related money laundering.
Social engineering is a generic term describing the manipulation of victims by threat actors, typically through human interaction, to trick them into performing some act or disclosing sensitive information.
Typically, the threat actors develop a convincing, realistic hook and then contact that person via phone or email to manipulate them.
Social engineering actors usually present an excuse to request a payment, but they may also use the stolen information to sell it to other crooks, gain access to networks/systems, perform blackmail, and more.
The FTC says that people in the US have
lost $547 million to romance scams in 2021 and the FBI reports that BEC scams have led to almost
$2.4 billion in reported losses.
