Score one for the Department of Justice.
The governmental department was responsible for the arrest and capture of one Kenneth Joseph Lucas II, a man who conspired with overseas hackers to loot money out of the banks accounts of unsuspecting victims.
Lucas is just one, though one of the most prolific, of a huge investigation from the government called Operating Phish Phry, which is awesome in so many ways.
Phishing is the act of baiting users into providing personal information like credit card numbers or log-in credentials through an online form designed to look like an official site.
So someone trying to grab user data from Chase account holders might purchase the domain “chase-bank.com,” set it up to look nearly identical to chase.com, then send out mass e-mails that look like they’re being sent from Chase. The phisher will hope it can trick users into going to the dummy site and provide their chase.com log-in details.
Lucas was one of 100 people arrested in this kind of illegal activity, and he was found guilty. For his phishing scams, Lucas was sentenced to 11 years in prison. That’s not the end of the story, though, because as part of the police investigation, authorities also happened to realize he was harboring marijuana at his house.
On charges of drug possession, Lucas was sentenced for five years behind bars, which will run concurrent with the phishing sentence, for a net total of 13 years in prison.
