Polri: Sale of “Phishing Tools” Causes 34,000 Global Victims

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Directorate of Cybercrime at Bareskrim Polri states that the case of selling phishing tools—software used to facilitate illegal activities—has caused 34,000 victims globally. This number of victims was identified by the police through coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding data and information on buyer and user identities, as well as victim details. “Data on approximately 34,000 identified victims was obtained for the period from January 2023 to April 2024,” said the Director of Cybercrime at Bareskrim Polri, Brigadier General of Police Himawan Bayu Aji, at the Bareskrim Polri building in Jakarta on Wednesday. He revealed that of this number, 17,000 victims were confirmed to have experienced hacking or account compromise, including successful phishing tool scripts bypassing multi-layered security mechanisms or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Furthermore, analysis of 157 victims showed that 53 percent were from the United States, while the remaining 47 percent were from various countries around the world. “Within this group, nine Indonesian company entities were identified as victims,” he added. He also disclosed that the losses suffered by the victims during the period from January 2023 to April 2024 are estimated to reach around $20 million or approximately Rp350 billion. Additionally, it was found that there were 2,440 buyers who conducted transactions during the period from 2019 to 2024 via Virtual Private Servers (VPS) located in Dubai and Moldova. “All transactions were confirmed using cryptocurrency assets recorded in the purchase history,” he stated. Himawan explained that the suspect GWL, a male, played the main role as the primary perpetrator who produced, sold, and developed phishing tools independently since 2018. “The suspect’s background is a graduate of a multimedia vocational high school and acquired skills in creating scripts through self-study,” he said. Meanwhile, the suspect FYT, a female, was involved in providing storage and managing funds from the criminal sale of phishing tools through cryptocurrency wallets since 2018. “Suspect FYT has been the girlfriend of suspect GWL since 2016 and assisted in managing the finances from the sale of scripts (phishing tools),” he said. For their actions, suspect GWL is charged with multiple articles, namely Article 51 paragraph (1) in conjunction with Article 35 and/or Article 50 in conjunction with Article 34 paragraph (1) of Law Number 1 of 2024 on the Second Amendment to Law Number 11 of 2008 on Electronic Information and Transactions and/or Article 607 paragraph (1) letter a or letter c of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code. GWL faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years and a fine of up to Rp10 billion. Whereas suspect FYT is charged with Article 607 paragraph (1) letter a or letter c of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code, with a maximum prison sentence of 15 years and a fine of up to Rp5 billion.