Global alert on bank robbing hackers: Kaspersky Lab warns infamous Russian cyber-criminal gangs are back, more dangerous than ever
International experts issue world warning to banking industry of new trojans and malware targeting ATM machines, call centres and support computers
Computer virus researcher Kaspersky Lab issued a warning to financial institutions this week that bank-robbing trojans and other malware launched by Russian hacking groups are making a comeback and may be deadlier than ever as they use more sophisticated malware to deploy APT-style attacks.
An APT - advanced persistent threat - attack represents a set of hacking processes that is typically very hard to detect due to its covert nature and lengthy running time.
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The malware was built by Russian gangs with the known involvement of mainland Chinese and Ukrainian criminals. Together, they infected hundreds of financial institutions in over 30 countries.
Metel, the latest addition to the list of cyber threats targeting banks, enables criminals to gain control of a bank’s system handling money transactions by hijacking its call centres and support computers, through which they can roll back ATM transactions using automated sequences.
This means the balance on clients’ debit cards remain unchanged regardless of the number of ATM transactions undertaken.