On Monday, March 26, armed thugs representing themselves as "Spanish National Police, with the support of Europol, the US FBI, the Romanian, Belarussian and Taiwanese authorities and private cyber security companies" arrested a yet-unnamed "mastermind" — who stands accused of causing "cumulative losses of over EUR 1 billion for the financial industry". And apparently this is not difficult:
"In all these attacks, a similar modus operandi was used. The criminals would send out to bank employees spear phishing emails with a malicious attachment impersonating legitimate companies. Once downloaded, the malicious software allowed the criminals to remotely control the victims’ infected machines, giving them access to the internal banking network and infecting the servers controlling the ATMs. This provided them with the knowledge they needed to cash out the money."
I.e. chair warmers were asked politely to install "Back Orifice" — and they (whether out of stupidity, or in exchange for a cut of the take — we are not told) obliged. As for MS-Windows, installed on bank infrastructure and in ATM boxes all over Europe: it, in turn, worked precisely as it was designed to work.
As of the time of this writing, the number of "bank employees" arrested in connection with their indispensable work in making this heist possible — stands at: zero. Likewise, the number of Microsoft executives held to answer for the very existence of "infectious attachments" as a concept — stands also at zero.1
The "mastermind" and his merry men also stand accused of Bernankeization without a license:
"Databases with account information were modified so bank accounts balance would be inflated, with money mules then being used to collect the money."
Magicking money into existence from thin air is, we learn, A-OK when carried out from a well-pedigreed bag of lard parked in an Aeron in New York — but not so much when it is done by non-bluebloods and on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
The accused, presently nameless — and held incommunicado — also stand to be punished for the unforgivable USG.crime of having "laundered via cryptocurrencies".
On the other hand, the EU bureaucracy informs us that the "perpetrator" of this "crime" supposedly was "vacationing in Spain" — rather suspiciously similar to the previous three major USG.kidnapping-under-the-colour-of-law victims; evidently crafting a replacement cover story for USG thugs' free hand in lifting people straight from the streets of Bucharest & elsewhere, would overrun the budget? ↩