[Boudica]

One thing that doesn't appear to have been discussed: How is it this easy for the criminals to do? I am a little confused.

I'll simplify this for those reading that article wondering, "wait, how did that even happen?"

The criminals used fraudulent RDPs and legitimate SSN's along with other tools to fake unemployment claims and those forms were literally just "who are you, how long have you been off work, and how did you lose your job". This led to the substantial increase in fraudulent cases filed with UIA. They are basically not possible to traceback & were hard to fix because in most cases the automatic system in place for COVID funds toward relief were so quick to give funds to self-employed, they can't keep up with the case investigations across all the states.

There's a method still being used today that pretty much automates payment delivery to unemployment programs. And you can still exploit the system with basic knowledge of proxying and RDP or a VPN in the same state as the victim. You can also bet there were scammers taking advantage of the elderly and unaware. Things like call centers weren't uncommon during the beginning of the pandemic. They'd call and pretend to be from the unemployment office and pretend to help someone setup relief funds (usually awarded by mail and by direct deposit) but they'd gain access to screens and change the bank details to the scam account. It's pretty basic and very shitty and immoral.

The interesting thing is, I haven't heard the same about the UK. 80% of most of nations wages were paid for almost a year (over a year for some people), but you don't hear about this level of advantage-taking. I suspect much of that is because it was all done via the workplace. A company is going to know how many people it hires, and who those people are. Much easier to track than a government tracking 300+ million people.