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As unemployed Americans, they look during the Coronavirus pandemicThe US secret service suspects that an overseas fraud ring is being used chopped Data to steal identities and make do with millions of dollars earmarked for unemployment benefits. The agency believes that Nigerian criminals could use personal information that was stolen from previous cyber attacks and fears Thefts could reach hundreds of millions of dollarsAccording to a Saturday report from the New York Times.
The main target of the fraud ring was the Washington State Labor Office, but other attacks hit Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wyoming, a Secret Service memo says.
The Secret Service confirmed on Saturday that they were “identified criminal actors targeting government funds from the unemployment insurance program,” but did not comment on the investigative details. The thefts are typically crooks who use identity theft to claim false unemployment claims and then use social engineering to launder the resulting money so that the criminals cannot be traced, the agency said.
“The agency’s primary investigative priorities are to mitigate all attempts by criminals to act against citizens for identity theft and cyber-enabled crimes related to COVID-19,” the agency said.
In April, the US Federal Trade Commission spoke of more than 100 reports of identity theft related to the coronavirus pandemic and false claims to unemployment benefits. However, the new report points to a much larger and more organized fraud effort.
From this week more than 36.5 million people have applied for unemployment benefits because of the job loss caused by the struggle to contain COVID-19. Status Unemployment support offices are overwhelmed Tens of millions of US citizens lose their jobs during the pandemic.