Mon, Feb 16, 2015 page15

• Hackers breach banks, steal millions

  DARING HEIST: A group installed malware in more than 100 banks in 30 nations to steal at least US$300 million, a Kaspersky Lab investigation is said to have revealed

  • NY Times News Service, PALO ALTO, California
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  In late 2013, an automated teller machine 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 clients who appeared lucky to be there at the right moment.

  However, when 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 US and the Netherlands into dummy accounts set up in other countries.

  In a report scheduled to be published today, and provided in advance to the New York Times, Kaspersky Lab said 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.

  The Moscow-based firm says that because of nondisclosure agreements with the banks that were hit, it cannot name them. White House officials and the FBI have been briefed on the findings but said it would take time to confirm them and assess the losses.

  Kaspersky Lab said it has seen evidence of US$300 million in theft from clients and believes the total could be triple that. However, that projection is impossible to verify because the thefts were limited to US$10 million per transaction, although some banks were hit several times. In many cases the hauls were more modest, presumably to avoid setting off alarms.

  The majority of the targets were in Russia, but many were in Japan, the US and Europe.

  No bank has come forward acknowledging the theft, a common problem that US President Barack Obama alluded to on Friday when he attended the first White House summit meeting on cybersecurity and consumer protection at Stanford University. He urged the passage of a law that would require public disclosure of any breach that compromised personal or financial information.

  However, the industry consortium that alerts banks to malicious activity, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, said in a statement, “our members are aware of this activity. We have disseminated intelligence on this attack to the members,” and “some briefings were also provided by law enforcement entities.”

  The American Bankers Association declined to comment. Investigators at Interpol said their digital crimes specialists in Singapore were coordinating an investigation with law enforcement in affected countries. In the Netherlands, the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit, a division of the Dutch National Police that investigates some of the world’s most advanced financial cybercrime, had also been briefed.

  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.

  Kaspersky North America managing director Chris Doggetof said 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,” Doggett said.

  As in the recent attack on Sony Pictures, which Obama again said on Friday had been conducted by North Korea, the intruders in the bank thefts were enormously patient, placing surveillance software in the computers of system administrators and watching their moves for months. The evidence suggests this was not a nation state but a specialized group of cybercriminals.

  The hackers’ success rate was impressive. One Kaspersky client lost US$7.3 million through ATM withdrawals alone, the firm said in its report. Another lost US$10 million from the exploitation of its accounting system.

  In some cases, transfers were run through the system operated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) which banks use to transfer funds across borders. It has long been a target for hackers — and long been monitored by intelligence agencies.

  Doggett likened most cyberthefts to “Bonnie and Clyde” operations, in which attackers break in, take whatever they can grab, and run. In this case, Doggett said, the heist was “much more Ocean’s Eleven.”
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