Fraud Ring In Hacking Attack On 60 Banks

beaujolais-nouveau

From Sky News, 26 June 2012

http://news.sky.com/story/952931/fraud-ring-in-hacking-attack-on-60-banks

I think this is what hit NatWest, RBS, Coutts, Ulster Bank.

Sixty million euro has been stolen from bank accounts in a massive cyber bank raid after fraudsters raided dozens of financial institutions around the world.


According to a joint report by software security firm McAfee and Guardian Analytics, more than 60 firms have suffered from what it has called an "insider level of understanding".


"The fraudsters' objective in these attacks is to siphon large amounts from high balance accounts, hence the name chosen for this research - Operation High Roller," the report said.


"If all of the attempted fraud campaigns were as successful as the Netherlands example we describe in this report, the total attempted fraud could be as high as 2bn (£1.6bn)."


The automated malicious software programme was discovered to use servers to process thousands of attempted thefts from both commercial firms and private individuals.


The stolen money was then sent to so-called mule accounts in caches of a few hundreds and 100,000 euro (£80,000) at a time.


Credit unions, large multinational banks and regional banks have all been attacked.


Sky News defence and security editor Sam Kiley said: "It does include British financial institutions and has jumped over to North America and South America.


"What they have done differently from routine attacks is that they have got into the bank servers and constructed software that is automated. It can get around some of the mechanisms that alert the banking system to abnormal activity."

My emboldening. End of the cashless society?

alanq

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

I think this is what hit NatWest, RBS, Coutts, Ulster Bank.

You can think what you like but have you any evidence? The head of MI5 was shown on TV today stating words to the effect that ALTHOUGH THE RECENT PROBLEMS AT RBS WERE NOT THE RESULT OF CYBER CRIME they illustrated how much we rely on computer systems and the potential disruption that a successful cyber attack could cause.

(Of course conspiracy theorists will think "well he would say that wouldn't he?")

RBS may or may not have been subject to such attacks but it seems that these are a separate issue to RBS's software upgrade foul up.

preable

Nah natwest was never attacked

beaujolais-nouveau

alanq wrote: »

The head of MI5 was shown on TV today stating words to the effect that ALTHOUGH THE RECENT PROBLEMS AT RBS WERE NOT THE RESULT OF CYBER CRIME

It is quite a good idea to get into the habit of running public statements like this backwards in one's mind. How likely is it that the head of MI5 would say that the RBS problems were due to cyber crime?

alanq wrote: »

it seems that these are a separate issue to RBS's software upgrade foul up.

It seems like a sensible precaution to me to assume - until proven otherwise - that a cyber raid was stopped by aborting the script that was doing the raiding, and as a result the data files were corrupted. You do what you want to do to protect your money, and I will do what looks appropriate to me to protect my money from going to Eastern Europe and never coming back.

callum9999

beaujolais-nouveau wrote: »

It is quite a good idea to get into the habit of running public statements like this backwards in one's mind. How likely is it that the head of MI5 would say that the RBS problems were due to cyber crime?



It seems like a sensible precaution to me to assume - until proven otherwise - that a cyber raid was stopped by aborting the script that was doing the raiding, and as a result the data files were corrupted. You do what you want to do to protect your money, and I will do what looks appropriate to me to protect my money from going to Eastern Europe and never coming back.

It's also a good idea to balance the conspiracy theories with cold, hard logic when deciding what to believe. Why exactly wouldn't the head of MI5 say that? The government/MI5 isn't responsible for it and it has no implications to national security.

Nothing based on uneducated guesses is really a "sensible precaution" in my book!