December 23, 2016
The cyber police have arrested several men suspected of breaching the computers of 90 gold and jewelry shops in Tehran and stealing more than $10,000.
Colonel Mohammad-Mehdi Kakvan, the commander of the Tehran cyber police, said the suspects used USB flash drives to break into the computer systems of the gold shops and used the keylogger malicious software, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
Keylogging, or keystroke logging, is the action of recording the keys struck on a keyboard so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored. This allows the key logger to collect passwords.
According to the police, the hackers had accessed the data on the banking transactions of the gold shops.
Colonel Kakvan added that the affected gold shops had failed to install and upgrade proper security software on the computers, which helped the hackers.