Security experts believe that more than 30,000 Australians' banking details have been compromised online. According to Dvuln, an Australian computer security firm, the exposed data, discovered during the last four years, refers to "multiple major banks". However, rather than being stolen from banks, the credentials were swiped from customers' devices by hackers employing "infostealer malware infections".
Dvuln warned that the data only reflects a "fraction" of the situation. Details from ten thousand users of one bank were discovered on "infostealer logs" where perpetrators can share and sell the information. Another bank had 5000 details found, while another had 4000.
Customers from Australia's major banks, such as Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ, and Westpac, had their information compromised. Dvuln advises that multi-factor authentication, which is increasingly required to access banking apps or websites, is "not a complete defence.”
"The infections targeted individual user devices and harvested their credentials, rather than compromising banking infrastructure directly," the report said.
Financial institutions, government, cybersecurity professionals, and the public must take coordinated action to mitigate the gap between endpoint compromise and financial misuse.
Malicious software, or infostealer malware, is "one of the most pervasive yet underreported threats facing Australia's financial sector," the report further reads.
The CEO of the Australian Banking Association, Anna Bligh, stated that the issue is not a breach of bank security systems, but rather the access of data from personal devices like laptops and phones.
"Keeping customers secure online is the top priority for Australia's banks," Blight stated.
"They continue to invest in security defences to help keep customers safe, including using advanced intelligence systems to monitor both open and dark web sources for compromised customer credentials.”
CommBank also recommended users to develop and change unique, strong passwords on a regular basis, install and maintain reliable anti-virus software, monitor their accounts and enable transaction notifications, and contact them if they see any suspicious behaviour.