A gang of hackers, OPERA1ER, stole at least $11m from companies in Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, 11 other African countries, and Argentina.
This is according to a new report from Group-IB, a cybersecurity firm, entitled, “OPERA1ER: Playing God without permission,” in collaboration with the researchers from Orange CERT Coordination Center.
The firm disclosed that digital forensic artifacts analysed by it and Orange followed more than 30 successful intrusions of the gang between 2018 and 2022.
The company’s data revealed that companies in Ivory Coast were the most targeted.
It said this helped it to trace affected organisations in Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, Paraguay, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Togo, and Argentina.
It added that while it estimated that the gang stole $11m, it could have actually stolen as high as $30m.
It stated, “The report takes a deep dive into financially motivated attacks…
