The Great Bank Heist

 

Typically bank heists are conducted with men wearing all black, ski masks and someone sitting in a van outside ready for a quick getaway. Perhaps that is too old school for a sophisticated group of hackers who just pulled of the biggest bank heist in history, pulling in a billion (yes that is billion with a ‘b’) dollar haul. They carried out this robbery in quite the opposite fashion of the aforementioned style of heist, working remotely and using computers to steal the money. 

This week Kaspersky announced in a report that the believed same hackers that carried out the high profile Staples hack from 2014 also carried out a much larger and slower moving bank caper. According to the report this elaborate scheme was deployed to roughly 100 financial institutions in the way of malware that infiltrated the bank, but did not make its move on the accounts until a period of time after. 

This malware would embed itself on the bank’s network, allowing the hackers to observe transactions and notice patterns in the movement of money in accounts. Once enough information was collected the hackers would strike moving relatively small amounts of money out of the accounts and placing them in other accounts. 

In the report Kaspersky made note that these thieves were so camouflaged into the banks’ networks and had studied the movement of money in a way that allowed them to transfer “made-up” funds into accounts without being noticed. For example, if an account was found to contain $1,000, the hackers change the numbers to $10,000 and transfer or withdraw $9,000.  Since the account holder did not deposit the extra $9,000 into their account it would likely remain unnoticed and therefore not reported to the bank.

The Gang

The suspected group of hackers that carried out is attack go by the name “Anunak” or “Carbanak,” a believed to be Russian, Eastern European, and Chinese based group of intuitive hackers that have figured out how to go unnoticed at some of these banks for almost a year. 

“The Anunak gang was said to have brought about the “armageddon” of the Russian banking industry and is deemed one of the most sophisticated cybercriminal groups ever seen, having earned as much as $18 million in 2014 alone.” According to an article by Forbes.com.

At the time this article was written, there was no signs of any activity from this group in 2015. This could mean that the group has disbanded or perhaps has developed a new scheme that has yet to go noticed.

The Hacker Attacker

As a Hacker Attacker you identify the importance of protecting yourself and even your company against hacking attacks. Making sure that you have the latest updates to your malware protection is a strong step in the right direction, but you should look even at your individual accounts. How secure are they? 

Using a stronger password is a great way to protect yourself beyond the basics of malware protection. A strong password can be your final barrier of protection between you and an online predator. 

Some authentication experts claim that a two-factor authentication solution is the ultimate protection when paired with a good firewall and anti-virus program. I challenge this belief though. A stronger password than “password123” or “123456,” I believe can be just as strong of a barrier in most situations. Two-factor certainly has its place, but it can be a roadblock for the end user trying to access their account as well. 

How strong is your password? Could it be a stronger password if you just added a special character? You bet!