$120 mn theft: US authorities seize call spoofing site

San Francisco: iSpoof, a call spoofing website which had stolen $120 million from victims, was seized by the United States authorities.

TechCrunch reported that iSpoof facilitated "spoofing" services that allowed paying customers to conceal their phone numbers by using trusted organisations, like banks or tax offices, in order to conduct social engineering attacks.

iSpoof said that it had been taken over by the FBI and the US Secret Service.

European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, Europol said, "The services of the website allowed those who sign up and pay for the service to anonymously make spoofed calls, send recorded messages, and intercept one-time passwords."

"The users were able to impersonate an infinite number of entities for financial gain and substantial losses to victims," it added.

iSpoof had around 59,000 users. The service's operators made an estimated $3.8 million in earnings in just the last 16 months, Europol said.

The police said it would reach out to potential victims using a list of phone numbers that iSpoof fraudsters have targeted.

"Instead of just taking down the website and arresting the administrator, we have gone after the users of iSpoof. Our message to criminals who have used this website is: we have your details and are working hard to locate you, regardless of where you are," said Helen Rance of the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit.