Flashy Nigerian Instagram star extradited to US to face BEC charges

By Lisa Vaas

The US has dragged a fancy-pants, Instagram-star, high-fashion-flaunting, alleged Nigerian scammer out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and into Chicago to face charges that he helped launder beaucoup bucks gouged out of businesses in email compromise (BEC) scams.

His name is Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, aged 37, also known as “Ray Hushpuppi” and “Hush.” Abbas, a Nigerian national, arrived in Chicago Thursday evening after being extradited from the UAE. He made an initial court appearance in Chicago on Friday, but his case is expected to be transferred to Los Angeles in coming weeks.

As of Monday, you could still check out his public, uber-blingy Instagram account, where Abbas has 2.4 million followers. It lists him as a real estate developer. The photos show him slouching on pricey couches in luxury hotels, riding in charter jets, wearing fancy sneakers and designer clothes, sporting expensive watches, posing in or with Richie Rich cars – think Bentleys, Ferraris, Mercedes and Rolls Royces – and lavishing pictorial love on Dior this and Gucci that.

So much Gucci. In fact, Abbas’s Instagram account listed his Snapchat contact name as “The Billionaire Gucci Master!!!”

Read more at https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/07/07/flashy-nigerian-instagram-star-extradited-to-us-to-face-bec-charges/

Company web names hijacked via outdated cloud DNS records

By Paul Ducklin

US security researcher Zach Edwards recently tweeted about finding 250 company website names that had been taken over by cybercriminals.

He didn’t name the brands, but insists that the organizations affected include banks, healthcare companies, restaurant chains, civil rights groups and more:

I reported ~250 enterprise subdomains I've found compromised over the last ~7 days // some of these orgs are MASSIVE (banks, tons of healthcare orgs, critical infrastructure, huge restaurant chains, power companies, insurance, civil rights groups). This story needs to be written.

— Z?????? ?????????????? (@thezedwards) July 3, 2020

The issue here is that the websites themselves haven’t been hacked, but their DNS entries have.

These attacks, known as DNS hijacks, happen when crooks don’t actually break into and take over a site itself, but instead simply change the “internet signposts” that point to it.

As you probably know, DNS, short for domain name system, is the distributed, global name-to-number database that automatically turns human-friendly server names such as nakedsecurity DOT sophos DOT com into computer-friendly IP numbers that are needed to send and receive network packets on the internet.

Read more at https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/07/07/company-web-names-hijacked-via-outdated-cloud-dns-records/