Hacker Ring Stole $1B from Banks in 30 Countries, Says Report

Again a hacker group has stolen more than $1 billion from different banks in all over the world and till now it is one of the biggest banking breaches, as per the reports of cyber-security firm.

According to Kaspersky Lab, which is one of the Russian security companies, “One of the hackers ring is active from last quarter of 2013 and they have infiltrated more than 100 different banks in 30 countries, including four banks in Canada.

They are using phishing schemes and other techniques to gain access banks computer and after that they lurk form one month to two month, to learn the banks' systems and in taking the screen shots or video of employees using their computers, the report says. As soon hackers become familiar with the banks' operations than they use their knowledge to steal money without raising any kind of suspicious activity, by setting up their fake accounts and transferring a lot of cash into them or programming ATMs to dispense money at their choice of time and more, according to Kaspersky.

This report was prepared to present in a security conference at Cancun, Mexico, but it was first reported by The New York Times.

It seems that hackers limit their theft $10 million before moving to another bank and this is why their fraud was not detected earlier, Vicente Diaz, Principal security researcher of Kaspersky said to The Associated Press in a telephone interview. These attacks were unusual because this time hackers target the banks rather than targeting any individual customers.

It seems that their goal is financial gain rather than espionage, Diaz said. This time hackers are not interested in any kind of personal information, they are only interested in financial gain. These hackers are flexible and quite aggressive as well because they have special tool for doing whatever they want to do. The most targeted countries are the U.S., Germany, Russia, Ukraine and China as attackers are expanding throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe, Kaspersky says.

One of the bank lost more than $7.3 million through ATM fraud, whereas; in another case one of the financial institution lost $10 million because attackers exploit the bank’s online banking platform. Till now the name of banks are not clear and still Kaspersky is working with law-enforcement agencies to investigate these attacks.

These days, White House is putting a lot of focus on cyber-security due to many data breaches in national security agencies and companies, which are ranging from mass retailers to financial institutions such as; Home Depot and Target to Sony Pictures Entertainment and other insurance companies.

Now U.S. administration wants Congress to replace the all existing patchwork of national and state laws by giving a 30 days’ notice to companies that consumer’s personal information has been compromised. “As a officials at this point of time we cannot disclose the actions of individuals, but we believe that our officials are taking an appropriate actions to prevent these attacks and minimize any effects on customers”, one of the national security agency of U.S. said in a statement.