Report: Using Malware, Hackers Steal Millions From Banks
Source: NPR
February 16, 2015 2:37 PM ET
Putting in place a sophisticated digital racket, hackers were able to steal millions of dollars from up to 100 banks in what the Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab is calling "the most successful criminal cyber campaign we have ever seen."
Kaspersky, which helped uncover a piece of malicious software in the systems of bank computers, says the scheme worked like this: First the hackers were able to install malicious software on computers by phishing bank employees. That led to the infection of hundreds of machines.
The hackers kept watch until they found the computer of an administrator. That's when they recorded the screen and keystrokes to learn the system. Eventually, they mimicked the staff and transferred large sums of money from banks in Russia, Switzerland, Japan, the United States and the Netherlands to dummy accounts in other countries.
In other cases, they simply instructed ATM machines to dispense money at certain times, where a conspirator would collect it. Perhaps in a sign of the hackers' sophistication, each bank robbery took two to four months from the infection of the computer to cashing the money out.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/16/386739804/report-using-malware-hacker-steal-millions-from-banks
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...services.
A bank spokesperson announced "Not to worry, we'll still be giving .0001 percent interest on your savings account"
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Maybe that will make the banks get more security conscious.
All I have been reading about for months and months now is how banks and other online biz have no clue about real security.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)LiberalArkie
(15,728 posts)It used to be that banks used dedicated special circuits to their branches and to the FED and the card networks. Now it is in the "Cloud".
JudyM
(29,265 posts)And were the banks' malware sniffers asleep?