A scammer stole a little more than $500,000 from the City of Ocala, Florida as the result of a successful spear phishing attack.
According to Ocala.com, an Ocala employee fell for a spear-phishing attack, one of the most common variants of phishing campaigns, near the end of October. They opened an email that appeared to come from a construction company that’s currently working with the City. Upon seeing a payment request for services performed, the employee complied and electronically sent over $640,000 to the bank account provided in the email.
That bank account did not belong to the contractor, however.
It’s not clear from Ocala.com’s reporting how the City determined that the spear phishing email was a fraud. Any any event, officials made this determination at a time when $110,000 of the designated payment remained in the City’s account. They subsequently canceled the remaining payment, which means that those responsible for the attack made off with a little more than $500,000.