Google and Facebook lose ‘£77million after falling for phishing scam sending cash to Lithuanian conman’
Evaldas Rimasauskas, 49 who allegedly conned two of the world's biggest companies was arrested on fraud charges
GOOGLE and Facebook have admitted they were conned out of an alleged $100million (£77million) in a phishing scam.
The two world's biggest companies fell victim after a Lithuanian man allegedly tricked employees into wiring over the money to bank accounts that he controlled, reported on Thursday.
Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, is accused of posing as an Asia-based manufacturer and deceived the internet giants from around 2013 until 2015.
He was arrested earlier this month in Lithuania at the request of US authorities
The conman is said to have forged email addresses, invoices and corporate stamps to impersonate Quanta and trick them into paying for computer supplies.
Rimasauskas, who is awaiting extradition proceedings, has denied the allegations.
The US said last month: "Fraudulent phishing emails were sent to employees and agents of the victim companies, which regularly conducted multi-million-dollar transactions with [the Asian] company."
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Both Facebook and Google have confirmed the fraud and said that they had been able to recoup funds.
But they didn't reveal how much money it had transferred and recouped.
A Google spokeswoman said: "We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities."
"We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved."
A spokeswoman for Facebook added: "Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation."
Security experts said the recent cyber attack highlighted how sophisticated phishing scams are being used to fool even two of the biggest tech companies.
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