Investigators believe the man responsible for today’s, January 30, 2018, Scappoose bank robbery is the “Froggy Robber,” now wanted in a total of five bank robberies. The FBI recently offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his identification, arrest and conviction. The FBI Wanted poster for Froggy Robber can be found at: https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov/robbers-container/2017-10-25.8983125421

The other four robberies include:

• On October 19, 2017, at approximately 10:15 a.m., the Columbia Bank located at 1455 Southeast 1st Avenue in Canby, Oregon, was robbed by an unknown male suspect. The suspect approached the teller counter, jumped the counter, and threatened employees with a knife while taking the money from all of the teller drawers. The unknown suspect then fled on foot.
• On November 27, 2017, at approximately 11:06 a.m., an unknown male suspect entered the Albina Community Bank located at 2002 NE Martin Luther King Jr Boulevad, Portland, Oregon, approached the teller counter, jumped over the counter, and robbed the tellers at knifepoint. The suspect then fled on foot.
• On December 27, 2017, at approximately 11:00 a.m., an unknown male suspect entered the Wells Fargo Bank located at 8699 SW Main Street, Wilsonville, Oregon, approached the teller counter, jumped over it, and robbed the tellers at knifepoint. The suspect then fled on foot.
• On January 11, 2018, at approximately 10:00 a.m., an unknown male suspect entered the Wells Fargo Bank located at 6785 Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, Beaverton, Oregon, approached the teller counter, jumped over it, and robbed the tellers at knifepoint. The suspect then fled on foot.

Also note the corrected height.

The FBI, Scappoose Police Department, and multiple law enforcement agencies around the region responded to a bank robbery at the U.S. Bank branch located at 52313 Columbia River Highway in Scappoose, Oregon this morning, January 30, 2018. During the course of the robbery, witnesses say the robber jumped the teller counter and threatened bank employees with a knife, demanded cash, received cash, and left the bank.

Reports that the suspect may have taken a school bus as a getaway vehicle are INACCURATE. Scappoose authorities have accounted for all school buses and all drivers.

Witnesses describe the bank robber as a Hispanic man, approximately 20-40 years of age, 5’3”—5’5″, about 160 pounds. Suspect was wearing blue pants with a blue hoodie and black shoes. Suspect is considered armed and dangerous. If you see the suspect or have any information on the suspect’s location, call the FBI at 503-224-4181 or 911.

The FBI, Scappoose Police Department, and multiple law enforcement agencies around the region responded to a bank robbery at the U.S. Bank branch located at 52313 Columbia River Highway in Scappoose, Oregon this morning, January 30, 2018. During the course of the robbery, witnesses say the robber jumped the teller counter and threatened bank employees with a knife, demanded cash, received cash, and left the bank.

Reports that the suspect may have taken a school bus as a getaway vehicle are INACCURATE. Scappoose authorities have accounted for all school buses and all drivers.

Witnesses describe the bank robber as a Hispanic man, approximately 20-40 years of age, 5’8″, about 160 pounds. Suspect was wearing blue pants with a blue hoodie and black shoes. Suspect is considered armed and dangerous. If you see the suspect or have any information on the suspect’s location, call the FBI at 503-224-4181 or 911.

Welcome to the Oregon FBI’s Tech Tuesday segment. This week, building a digital defense against ransomware attacks that impact your business.

Even if it hasn’t already happened to you or your company—you probably know someone who has experienced a ransomware attack. They can be devastating to any business—whether a Fortune 500 corporation or a mom-and-pop local store. Hospitals and government agencies—including school districts, university systems, police departments, cities and counties—are all potentially vulnerable as well.

In the past, the attack often started with a phishing e-mail—that’s phishing with a “ph”. The fraudster would send you or a co-worker what appeared to be a legitimate looking e-mail with a link to a website, an invoice, or other document. Once you clicked, you would have now downloaded malware onto your system. As with everything, this scam is growing more sophisticated as fraudsters figure out how to evade e-mail security systems. To that end, the FBI is now seeing cases where fraudsters are avoiding e-mail all together and embedding the malware onto legitimate websites that businesses are likely to use.

Regardless of how the malware got onto your system, it starts to encrypt the files on your computer, and—depending on how your network is set up—can travel throughout the system to infect and encrypt all your company’s files. The malware can often also travel to your cloud-based back-ups and encrypt them, too. The scammers will demand payment—often in bitcoin or virtual currency—to maybe unlock your data.

Needless to say, the damage can be devastating. In Oregon, the FBI has particular concerns about the ability of small and medium-sized businesses’ ability to recover if they lose access to customer files and sensitive data.

In this case, a good offense starts with a strong digital defense.

• Make sure that you regularly make offline back-ups of all of your company’s critical data so that you can reconstitute your business right away. Ensure that these backups are completely segregated—both virtually and physically—from your day-to-day operations.
• Educate your employees about good prevention, especially when it comes to identifying and mitigating phishing attacks.
• Patch operating systems, software, and firmware on your digital devices to ensure that they have the latest protections.
• Limit those who have admin access to your system.
• Ensure that antivirus and anti-malware solutions are enabled and set to update automatically.
• Implement software controls to prevent programs from executing from areas where ransomware tends to lurk (such as temporary folders supporting popular Internet browsers).
• Finally, the FBI recommends never paying the ransom as there is no guarantee that the scammer will return your data to you. Beyond that, the money you pay may be used to fund organized crime activity or acts of terrorism while encouraging future criminal activity by these cyber thieves.

Next week, we will look at the ransomware risks you face with your personal devices at home.

If you have been victimized by an online scam, be sure to report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov or call your local FBI office.