"The World's Most Sophisticated Cyber Attack" - How Hackers Infiltrated The Banks & Stole Millions
Since late 2013, The NY Times reports that an unknown group of hackers has reportedly stolen $300 million - possibly as much as triple that amount - from banks across the world, with the majority of the victims in Russia. The attacks continue, all using roughly the same modus operandi...
Hackers send email containing a malware program called Carbanak to hundreds of bank employees, hoping to infect a bank’s administrative computer.
Programs installed by the malware record keystrokes and take screen shots of the bank’s computers, so that hackers can learn bank procedures. They also enable hackers to control the banks’ computers remotely.
By mimicking the bank procedures they have learned, hackers direct the banks’ computers to steal money in a variety of ways:
Source: Kasperskly Labs
As The NY Times reports,
Hackers send email containing a malware program called Carbanak to hundreds of bank employees, hoping to infect a bank’s administrative computer.
Programs installed by the malware record keystrokes and take screen shots of the bank’s computers, so that hackers can learn bank procedures. They also enable hackers to control the banks’ computers remotely.
By mimicking the bank procedures they have learned, hackers direct the banks’ computers to steal money in a variety of ways:
Source: Kasperskly Labs
As The NY Times reports,
No bank has come forward acknowledging the theft...In late 2013, an A.T.M. in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card or touched a button. Cameras showed that the piles of money had been swept up by customers who appeared lucky to be there at the right moment.
But when a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, was called to Ukraine to investigate, it discovered that the errant machine was the least of the bank’s problems.
The bank’s internal computers, used by employees who process daily transfers and conduct bookkeeping, had been penetrated by malware that allowed cybercriminals to record their every move. The malicious software lurked for months, sending back video feeds and images that told a criminal group — including Russians, Chinese and Europeans — how the bank conducted its daily routines, according to the investigators.
Then the group impersonated bank officers, not only turning on various cash machines, but also transferring millions of dollars from banks in Russia, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the Netherlands into dummy accounts set up in other countries.
In a report to be published on Monday, and provided in advance to The New York Times, Kaspersky Lab says that the scope of this attack on more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 nations could make it one of the largest bank thefts ever — and one conducted without the usual signs of robbery.
...
Kaspersky Lab says it has seen evidence of $300 million in theft through clients, and believes the total could be triple that.
* * *The silence around the investigation appears motivated in part by the reluctance of banks to concede that their systems were so easily penetrated, and in part by the fact that the attacks appear to be continuing.
The managing director of the Kaspersky North America office in Boston, Chris Doggett, argued that the “Carbanak cybergang,” named for the malware it deployed, represents an increase in the sophistication of cyberattacks on financial firms.
“This is likely the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date in terms of the tactics and methods that cybercriminals have used to remain covert,” Mr. Doggett said.
...
Mr. Doggett likened most cyberthefts to “Bonnie and Clyde” operations, in which attackers break in, take whatever they can grab, and run. In this case, Mr. Doggett said, the heist was “much more ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’ ”
“We found that many banks only check the accounts every 10 hours or so,” Mr. Golovanov of Kaspersky Lab said. “So in the interim, you could change the numbers and transfer the money.”
Read More Here...
(17 votes)
»
- Login or register to post comments
- 23438 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Audio Commentary From RanSquawk:
02-17 12:48: TheStreetSweeper out negative on IBIO (IBIO)
Contact Information:
Tips: tips [ at ] zerohedge.com
General: info [ at ] zerohedge.com
Legal: legal [ at ] zerohedge.com
Advertising: ads [ at ] zerohedge.com
Abuse/Complaints: abuse [ at ] zerohedge.com
Suggested Reading:
Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide
It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer, our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure. Here's our Cookie Policy.
How to report offensive comments
Notice on Racial Discrimination.
Tips: tips [ at ] zerohedge.com
General: info [ at ] zerohedge.com
Legal: legal [ at ] zerohedge.com
Advertising: ads [ at ] zerohedge.com
Abuse/Complaints: abuse [ at ] zerohedge.com
Suggested Reading:
Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide
It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer, our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure. Here's our Cookie Policy.
How to report offensive comments
Notice on Racial Discrimination.
Posts
How do you think the ChiComs are paying for the massive expansion of their military?
(Which they will eventually use against us)
Only if you're the employee who watches lots of porn on the company system.
Either way, they would have done us a larger favor had they simply started wiping out debts instead and erasing any trace of them.
"Western Spy Agencies Secretly Rely on Hackers for Intel and Expertise"
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/04/demonize-prosecute-hackers...
"with the majority of the victims in Russia"
If that's not NSA or CIA I'll eat my hat.
(Or the Norks. Chuckle. Chuckle)
The victim account holder might have had $10,000 in their account - the hackers made it $100,000, then transfered $90,000 to themselves in the blink of an eye, account holder still has $10,000.
No diffterent than Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen hitting Ctrl+P on the FED keyboard and the Treasury giving banks all the "money" they want at 0.5% so they can lend it out at to the sheeple at 4.5%-29%.
Who are the more malicious thieves here, hackers giving themselves some cash or the .gov and bank/corporate interests working together to rob the public treasury while making citizens debt slaves?
I expect to see more of these so called "hacks".
Like the simple commercial software available for parents to keep track of their kid's activities on line which will record every keystroke and scree of every site visited, it's simply downloaded onto the system in question and records the activity.
Later, the necessary information sought is retrieved and voila, y'all got entry into and command of said system
It end runs (both front and back) encryption. Just as my acquaintance, the retired crypto analyst at the Uknowhoagency agreed to when offered the paradigm.
So simple a caveman could do it
This is a no brainer.
If it in any way is connected to the ether-space, it is publicly available. EOC QED
PS Also tells you that we as individuals should always hand audit/balance our financial statements with any financial institution by hand. Just like in the old days. If ya' don't activity like this takes place, you never ever know it. That's your second best control over this kind of theft. The first and best is not to have anything on line .... but your bank is already on line, so no absolute control other than personal eyeball check and balance
Ayep.
Aww shucks grandpa, you're sooo smart.
LOL.
If you want to rob the world, buy a bank.
$300 million is NOTHING to the Banksters.
neither is a "paltry" billion here or there.
Now compromised trust in the banking system DOES mean something to them.
And it might possibly explain why so many banksters heads have rolled of late.
They stole zero's and ones, not wealth. Any jack ass could just walk over to a terminal and replace the zero's and ones.
Fuck you NSA, suck the smoke up your alert cybercrime ass. If you knew the people, the cable would have never hit the internet news. It would be Classified Intel. Fake stories to catch a phishing story. Stupid cunts trying to validate your budget.
Isn't your mission to predict a crime before it happens? Perhaps cutting your budget will make you more effective or defunct. Boo!
110001100 110001100 110001100 110001100
See what I mean?
But don't worry, the info you have stored in the cloud is completely safe.