Hackers Steal Up to $1B from Banks: Kaspersky Deutsche Welle
go to original February 16, 2015

A hacking ring spent at least a year stealing up to $1 billion from banks around the world, a cybersecurity firm has said. It is thought to be one of the biggest bank security breaches ever.

Russian anti-virus software firm Kaspersky Lab said Monday that hackers gained access to banks' computers through phishing schemes and other methods and then patiently spend months learning the banks' systems, taking screen shots and even videos of employees using their computers.

The hackers, thought to be Russian, Chinese and European, have been active since at least the end of 2013 and have infiltrated more than 100 banks in 30 countries, according to a report to be presented Monday at a security conference in Cancun, Mexico.

It is not known exactly how much the hackers have stolen, but it is likely to be anywhere between $300 million and $1 billion. The attacks may also still be ongoing.

According to Kaspersky Lab research, how the money was stolen:

• When the time came to cash in on their activities, the criminals used online banking or international e-payment systems to transfer money from the banks’ accounts to their own. In the second case the stolen money was deposited with banks in China or the United States. The experts do not rule out the possibility that other banks in other countries were used as receivers.

• In other cases cybercriminals penetrated right into the very heart of the accounting systems, inflating account balances before pocketing the extra funds via a fraudulent transaction. For example: if an account has $1,000, the criminals change its value so it has $10,000 and then transfer $9,000 to themselves. The account holder doesn’t suspect a problem because the original $1,000 is still there.

• In addition, the cyber thieves seized control of banks’ ATMs and ordered them to dispense cash at a pre-determined time. When the payment was due, one of the gang’s henchmen was waiting beside the machine to collect the ‘voluntary’ payment.

Read the rest at Deutsche Welle

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