Hacking Ring Banking Theft - According to a report from Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, a hacking ring has stolen about $1 billion from banks across the world in an operation which began in 2013.
According to the report, which Kaspersky is scheduled release on Monday, the unidentified hackers have been active since 2013 and have successful breached the security of more than 100 banks in over 30 countries spanning different continents.
The hackers, who are arguably the biggest in the history of cyber crime, infiltrate the computer of banks by employing different phishing schemes and other clever tricks.
After gaining access they gather information, lurking for months to absorb enough about the banks' system. They go to the extent of taking screen shot and even video unsuspecting employees working on their computers.
After gaining intimate knowledge of the banks internal system, the hackers move huge sums of money without officials noticing. They steal monies by setting up fake accounts and transferring the money to them. They also do so by programming ATMs to dispense money at certain times.
The report scheduled to be presented on Monday in Cancun, Mexico, reveals that the hackers may have gone unnoticed for a long time because they limited their theft to $10 million per bank.
According to Vicente Diaz, Kaspersky principal security researcher, the hackers are different because they steal from the banks not their customers. He added that the cybercriminals don't seem to be interested in information, rather their goal is money.
"In this case they are not interested in information. They're only interested in the money," he said during a phone interview with AP. "They're flexible and quite aggressive and use any tool they find useful for doing whatever they want to do."
The hackers have mostly targeted the U.S., Russia, Germany, China and Ukraine. They have also expanded to Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Kaspersky says they are working with law enforcement agencies to investigate the crime. The affected banks have not yet been identified.
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nonprofit organization, which informs banks about illegal cyber activities, says it was aware of the reports since January.
"We cannot comment on individual actions our members have taken, but on balance we believe our members are taking appropriate actions to prevent and detect these kinds of attacks and minimize any effects on their customers," a statement from the organization read.
"The report that Russian banks were the primary victims of these attacks may be a significant change in targeting strategy by Russian-speaking cybercriminals."
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