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Showing posts with label Bank Cyber Security. Show all posts
Indian Bank
ATM ATM Skimmer Bank Cyber Security Banks Cyber Security Cyberattack Digital Money Hackers Steal Money Indian Bank

Indian Banks Failing to Protect Their Cyber Security

 


Indian Banks Failing to Protect Their Cyber Security In Thane, Maharastra some unidentified fraudsters hacked the server and tampered with the data of a cooperative bank. According to Police, the hackers allegedly siphoned off Rs. 1.51 crore to various accounts from the Dombivli Nagarik Sahkari (DNS) bank on March 12. 
 
Following the attack, a case has been registered against unidentified persons under section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 65 of the Information Technology Act at Manpada police station under the Kalyan division who has started a probe into the incident in collaboration with Thane cyber police.  
 
The security incident draws light on the issue of bank frauds that have become deep-seated in the Indian Financial System. In just over seven years, Indian banks have witnessed frauds surpassing $5 trillion with total fraud loans amounting to Rs. 1.37 lakh crore in the last year alone.  
 
Shocking scams like Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam (2018), Cosmos Bank cyberattack (2018), Canara Bank ATM Hack (2018), along with many other vishing, phishing, ATM skimming, and spamming attacks have continued to plague Indian banks over the recent years. With an increase in digital-based transactions, money cheating cases have also witnessed a sharp rise. The techniques and resistance measures employed by banks to safeguard their customers’ financial data and money have met with progressive and sophisticated hacking techniques used by fraudsters in India.  
 
John Maynard Keynes, after examining the condition of banking in India said banking in India should be conducted on the safest possible principles while calling India a “dangerous country for banking”. The apprehension has proven to be prophetic in the modern world as financial institutions failing to conduct prudent banking have become the center of monetary scams. Reportedly, the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank constituted a majority of incidents totaling more than 50,000 fraudulent incidents in the last 11 fiscal years.  
 
Digitalization in India has led to the manifestation of ‘Digital Money’ and cashless transactions have been on a continual rise. Consequently, the protection of data and privacy becomes more important as a fragile cybersecurity system can have serious repercussions for any bank’s customer base.  
 
Data breaches have emerged to be a serious threat in the banking sector which further amplifies the need for an impenetrable banking system as recovering from data breaches and regaining control of a breached server can be extremely stressful and time-consuming. In order to strengthen the evolution of the banking system, banks require to identify and plug the gaps in security. Part of the problem can be attributed to the accelerated pace of digitization which has increasingly required the same kind of investment on the cyber hygiene side as well.  
 
Some of the viable measures that banks can undertake include proactive security techniques like ‘Whitelisting’ (blocks unapproved programs while only allowing a limited set of programs to run) and BIOS passwords (prevents external access to systems and servers). Awareness of employees, stringent filtering, and communicating regularly with regional offices are some of the other preventive measures as advised by the security experts.
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Rootkit
Bank Credentials Bank Cyber Security Banking Data Caketap Cyber Security Data Data Hacking Fraud Rootkit

Caketap: A New Unix Rootkit Used to Steal ATM Banking Data

 

Following the activities of LightBasin, a financially motivated group of hackers, threat analysts have discovered a previously undisclosed Unix rootkit that is utilized to capture ATM banking data and execute fraudulent transactions. 

The specific group of adversaries has lately been seen targeting telecom businesses with tailored implants, as well as hacking managed service providers and victimising their clients back in 2020. Researchers present more proof of LightBasin activities in a new paper from Mandiant, focused on bank card fraud and the compromise of critical infrastructure. The new rootkit from LightBasin is a Unix kernel module called "Caketap" that is installed on servers running Oracle Solaris systems. 

Caketap hides network connections, processes, and files when it is loaded; it installs various hooks into system services so that remote commands and configurations can be received. The various commands observed by the analysts are as follows: 

• Add the CAKETAP module back to the loaded modules list 
• Change the signal string for the getdents64 hook 
• Add a network filter (format p) 
• Remove a network filter 
• Set the current thread TTY to not to be filtered by the getdents64 hook 
• Set all TTYs to be filtered by the getdents64 hook \
• Displays the current configuration Caketap's ultimate purpose is to steal financial card and PIN verification data from compromised ATM switch servers and utilise it to enable fraudulent transactions. 

Caketap intercepts data on their way to the Payment Hardware Security Module (HSM), a tamper-resistant hardware device used in the banking industry to generate, manage and validate cryptographic keys for PINs, magnetic stripes, and EMV chips. 

Caketap tampers with card verification messages, blocking those that match fraudulent bank cards instead of generating a genuine response. In a second phase, it saves valid messages that match non-fraudulent PANs (Primary Account Numbers) internally and delivers them to the HSM, ensuring that normal customer transactions are not disrupted and implant operations remain undetected. 

“We believe that CAKETAP was leveraged by UNC2891 (LightBasin) as part of a larger operation to successfully use fraudulent bank cards to perform unauthorized cash withdrawals from ATM terminals at several banks,” explains Mandiant’s report. 

Slapstick, Tinyshell, Steelhound, Steelcorgi, Wingjook, Wingcrack, Binbash, Wiperight, and the Mignogcleaner are further tools related to the actor in prior assaults, all of which Mandiant confirmed are still used in LightBasin attacks. 

LightBasin is a highly skilled threat actor that exploits weak security in mission-critical Unix and Linux systems, which are frequently viewed as intrinsically secure or are mostly ignored due to their obscurity. 

LightBasin and other attackers thrive in this environment, and Mandiant expects them to continue to use the same operating model. In terms of attribution, the analysts noticed some overlaps with the UNC1945 threat cluster, but they don't have enough clear evidence to draw any judgments.
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Russian Hackers
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Crime Cyber Crime Report Dark Web Monitoring Darkweb Russian Hackers

Russian hacker created the RedLine program, which steals passwords and bank card data in browsers

The RedLine malware attacks browsers based on the Chromium engine — Chrome, Edge, Yandex.Browser and Opera, as well as on the basis of the Gecko engine - Mozilla Firefox and Netscape. RedLine steals saved passwords, bank card data, information about cryptocurrency wallets, cookies, system information, and other information from browsers.

Further, experiments showed that the program collects any sensitive information stored in browsers, and in addition allows you to control the computers of victims via the SOAP remote access protocol and hypothetically create botnets from them. The problem affects not only companies but also ordinary users.

The RedLine program appeared on the Russian darknet in February 2020. The announcement of its sale was posted by a Russian-speaking user with the nickname REDGlade.

The AhnLab ASEC report calls RedLine a serious cyber threat. ASEC discovered the program in 2021 when they were investigating the hacking of the network of an unnamed company. It turned out that access was carried out through a VPN service from an employee's computer infected with RedLine.

Attackers sell malware on the darknet and telegram for an average of $150-200. RedLine is distributed using phishing mailings with attached files in the format .doc, .xls, .rar, .exe. It is also uploaded to domains that disguise themselves as an online casino or, for example, the website of the Krupskaya Confectionery Factory.

It is worth noting that in December 2021, RedLine became the most popular program used in cyber attacks. Since the beginning of the month, more than 22 thousand attacks have been carried out with the help of RedLine.

Experts urged not to store credentials in browsers, suggesting instead to use a password manager and enable two-factor authentication wherever possible.

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User Security
Bank Cyber Security Bank fraud Bank Security Banks Cyber Risk Cyber Security Finance Financial Regulators RBI User Privacy User Security

How Banks Evade Regulators For Cyber Risks

 


As of late, the equilibrium between the banks, regulators, and vendors has taken a hit as critics claim that banks are not doing enough for safeguarding the personally identifiable information of the clients and customers they are entrusted with. As there has been rapid modernization in internet banking and modes of instant payments, it has widened the scope of attack vectors, introducing new flaws and loopholes in the system; consequently, demanding financial institutions to combat the threat more actively than ever. 

In the wake of the tech innovations that have broadened the scope of cybercrime, the RBI has constantly felt the need to put forth reminders for banks to strengthen their cyber security mechanisms; of which they reportedly fell short. As financial frauds relating to electronic money laundering, identity theft, and ATM card frauds surge, banks have increasingly avoided taking the responsibility.  

It's a well-known fact that banks hire top-class vendors to circumvent cyber threats, however, not a lot of people would know that banks have gotten complacent with their reliance on vendors to the point of holding them accountable for security loopholes and cybersecurity mismanagement. Subsequently, regulators fine the third-party entity, essentially the 'vendors' providing diligent cyber security risk management to the banks.  

The question that arises is that are banks on their own doing enough to protect their customers from cyber threats? Banks need to understand monitoring and management tools available to manage cyber security and mitigate risks. Financial institutions have an inherent responsibility of aggressively combating fraud and working on behalf of their customers and clients to stay one step ahead of threats.  

Banks can detect and effectively prevent their customers' privacy and security from being jeopardized. For instance, banks can secure user transactions by proactively monitoring SMS using the corresponding mobile bank app. They can screen phishing links and unauthorized transactions and warn customers if an OTP comes during a call.  

Further, banks are expected to strictly adhere to the timeframe fixed for reporting frauds and ensuring that customer complaints regarding unscrupulous activities are timely registered with police and investigation agencies. Banks must take accountability in respect of reporting fraud cases of their customers by actively tracking the accounts and interrupting vishing/phishing campaigns on behalf of their customers as doing so will allow more stringent monitoring of the source, type, and modus operandi of the attacks. 

“We are getting bank fraud cases from the customers of SBI and Axis Bank also. It is yet to be verified whether the data has been leaked or not. There might be data loss or it could be some social engineering fraud,” Telangana’s Cyberabad Crimecrime police said. 

“Police said that the fraudsters had updated data of the thousands of customers who received new credit cards and it was a bank’s insider who is the architect of this whole fraud,” reads a report pertaining to an aforementioned security incident by The Hindu.  

“This is a classic case to explain the poor procedure practised by the network providers while issuing SIM cards, and of course the data security system at the banks,” a senior police officer said. 

In relation to the above stated, banks should assume accountability for their customers’ security and shall review and strengthen the monitoring process, while meticulously following the preventive course of action based on risk categorization like checking at multiple levels, closely monitoring credits and debits, sending SMS alerts, and (wherever required) alerting the customer via a phone call. The objective, essentially, is for banks to direct the focus on aspects of prevention, prompt detection, and timely reporting for the purpose of aggregation and necessary corrective measures by regulators which will inhibit the continuity of crime, in turn reducing the ‘quantum’ of loss.  

Besides, vigorously following up with police and law authorities, financial institutions have many chances to detect ‘early warning signals’ which they can not afford to ignore, banks should rather use those signals as a trigger to instigate detailed pre-investigations. Cyber security is a ‘many-leveled’ thing conception, blaming the misappropriations on vendors not only demonstrates the banks’ tendency to avoid being a defaulter but also impacts the ‘recoverability aspects’ like effective monitoring for the customers to a great degree.
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Ransomware
Banco Pichincha Bank Cyber Security Cobalt Strike Cyber Attacks Ecuador Ransomware

Banco Pichincha: Ecuador's Largest Bank Hit by a Cyber Attack

 

Banco Pichincha, Ecuador's biggest private bank by capitalization and depositors, has been struck by a cyberattack that has crippled its operations and knocked the ATM and online banking website to be unavailable to the users. 

The intrusion happened over the weekend, and the bank had to lock down parts of its network to prevent the attack from spreading to other systems. The bank's systems have been taken down, causing considerable inconvenience, with ATMs no longer functioning and service notifications appearing on internet banking websites. 

The bank has 1.8 million customers, $4.5 billion in assets, and $4 billion in deposits, along with over 200 offices; Banco Pichincha has subsidiaries in Peru (Banco Financiero Per), Colombia (Banco Pichincha) and Panama (Banco Pichincha Panamá). And it also has a representative office in Miami and eight in Spain, comprising two each in Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia, and Comunidad Valenciana. 

Employees were informed that bank applications, email, digital channels, and self-services would be unavailable due to a technological issue, in an internal notification addressed to the Bank's departments. Self-service consumers should be guided to bank teller windows for assistance during the downtime, as per the internal memo. 

Banco Pichincha published a statement on Tuesday afternoon following two days of silence over the bank's technological troubles, acknowledging that their systems were disrupted by a cyberattack. 

The statement read: "In the last few hours, we have identified a cybersecurity incident in our computer systems that have partially disabled our services. We have taken immediate actions such as isolating the systems potentially affected from the rest of our network and have cybersecurity experts assist in the investigation. 

At the moment, our network of agencies, ATMs for cash withdrawals and payments with debit and credit cards are operational. 

This technological incident did not affect the financial performance of the bank. We reiterate our commitment to safeguard the interests of our clients and restore normal care through our digital channels in the shortest possible time. 

We call for calm to avoid generating congestion and to stay informed through the official channels of Banco Pichincha to avoid the spread of false rumors." - Banco Pichincha. 

Although, the origin of the attack has not been revealed to the public by the bank, according to insiders in the cybersecurity field, the hack is a ransomware attack with malicious attackers placing a Cobalt Strike beacon on the network. 

Cobalt Strike is often used by ransomware gangs as well as other threat actors to obtain endurance and access to additional systems on a system.
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Trojan
Android Bank Cyber Security Banking Malware Banking scam Hydra Malware malware Malware Trojan Trojan

Hydra Malware Targets Germany's Second Largest Bank Customers

 

The Hydra banking trojan has resurfaced to target European e-banking platform users, especially Commerzbank customers, Germany's second-largest financial institution. 

MalwareHunterTeam discovered the two-year-old virus in a fresh dissemination operation that targets German users with a malicious APK called 'Commerzbank Security' with a lookalike icon to the legitimate application. 

This grabbed the attention of Cyble researchers, who sampled the file for a more in-depth study, revealing a sophisticated phishing tool with broad rights access. 

According to Cyble experts, Hydra is still evolving; the variations used in the latest campaign include TeamViewer features, similar to the S.O.V.A. Android banking Trojan, and utilize various encryption methods to avoid detection, as well as Tor for communication. 

The latest version additionally allows to turn off the Play Protect Android security function. The virus demands two very hazardous permissions, BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_PERMISSION and BIND_DEVICE_ADMIN, according to the experts. 

The Accessibility Service is a background service that assists users with disabilities, and the BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE permission permits the app to access it. 

The analysis published by Cyble states, “Malware authors abuse this service to intercept and monitor all activities happening on the device’s screen. For example, using Accessibility Service, malware authors can intercept the credentials entered on another app.” 

“BIND_DEVICE_ADMIN is a permission that allows fake apps to get admin privileges on the infected device. Hydra can abuse this permission to lock the device, modify or reset the screen lock PIN, etc.” 

Other rights are requested by the malware to carry out harmful activities such as accessing SMS content, sending SMSs, making calls, modifying device settings, spying on user activity, and sending bulk SMSs to the victim's contacts: 
  • CHANGE_WIFI_STATE : Modify Device’s Wi-Fi settings 
  • READ_CONTACTS: Access to phone contacts 
  • READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE: Access device external storage 
  • WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE: Modify device external storage 
  • READ_PHONE_STATE: Access phone state and information 
  • CALL_PHONE: Perform call without user intervention 
  • READ_SMS : Access user’s SMSs stored in the device 
  • REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES : Install applications without user interaction 
  • SEND_SMS: This allows the app to send SMS messages 
  • SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW: The display of system alerts over other apps 
The code analysis shows that many classes are missing from the APK file. To avoid signature-based detection, the malicious code uses a custom packer. 

Cyble concluded, “We have also observed that the malware authors of Hydra are incorporating new technology to steal information and money from its victims. Alongside these features, the recent trojans have incorporated sophisticated features. We observed the new variants have TeamViewer or VNC functionality and TOR for communication, which shows that TAs are enhancing their TTPs.” 

“Based on this pattern that we have observed, malware authors are constantly adding new features to the banking trojans to evade detection by security software and to entice cybercriminals to buy the malware. To protect themselves from these threats, users should only install applications from the official Google Play Store.” 

18 million potential targets

Commerzbank has 13 million German clients and another 5 million in Central and Eastern Europe. This amounts to a total of 18 million potential targets, which is always an important factor for malware distributors. 

Typically, threat actors utilise SMS, social media, and forum postings to direct potential victims to malicious landing pages that install the APK on German devices. 

If anyone believes they have already fallen into Hydra's trap, it is suggested that they clean their device with a trustworthy vendor's security tool and then do a factory reset.
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Russian Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Attacks Russian Cyber Security

The August cyber attacks targeted a dozen Russian banks

Up to 15 Russian financial organizations were subjected to a large-scale cyberattack in August and September of this year.

The first deputy head of the Information Security Department of the Bank of Russia, Artem Sychev, said that 10-15 Russian financial organizations that serve e-commerce were subjected to cyber attacks in August and early September.

According to him, it was several DDoS attacks. “Most of these attacks were repelled in an automated mode by the means that financial organizations have,” Sychev noted.

Financial CERT (Financial Sector Computer Emergency Response Team, a special division of the Bank of Russia) also helped to cope with the attacks, which quickly notified banks about the attacks and connected telecom operators to solving problems. They helped to quickly redirect traffic and enable tools that filter malicious traffic.

According to Sychev, the attacks were serious, but the attackers failed to disrupt the performance of credit institutions.

“But, nevertheless, there is such a risk of dependence on monopoly service providers for financial organizations,” he added.

“The events that took place in Russia in August and early September and were associated with massive DDoS attacks clearly showed that it is not enough for us, as the financial industry, to exchange information with each other, we need to do this with telecom operators, as they are the basis for interaction between customers and financial organizations. How quickly we can interact between financial organizations and telecom operators largely depends on how quickly we can respond to the attacks that occur in the financial sector, and how quickly we can cope with these attacks,” Sychev added.

On September 2, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov said that the bank had successfully repelled the world's most powerful DDoS attack on the financial sector.

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Technology
Bank Cyber Security Digital Ruble Technology

Banks have assessed the security of digital ruble payments

Major Russian banks are ready to take part in testing the digital ruble and have no doubt that it will be in demand among customers

According to market participants, special attention should be paid to information security: digital rubles can be paid offline and, according to banks, such operations may become a tidbit for fraudsters.

The Bank of Russia presented the idea of a digital ruble in mid-October. It is assumed that it will be in the form of a unique digital code stored in a special electronic wallet and become a full-fledged means of payment on a par with the ordinary ruble. Its prototype is scheduled to be tested next year and the regulator presented its concept last Thursday.

"VTB is ready to take part in pilot projects related to the introduction of the digital ruble. VTB estimates that it may take about two years to create the infrastructure for the implementation of the digital currency," said Vadim Kulik, Deputy President and Chairman of the Bank's Management Board. Apart from VTB, other major credit institutions, including Russian Standard and Promsvyazbank, are ready to take part in the testing of the digital ruble.

Participants of the pilot project will have to solve a number of issues and put a special emphasis on the safety of operations for clients. "The main risks of payments in digital rubles are gaining unauthorized access to an electronic wallet and committing fraudulent operations using social engineering methods", said Andrei Makosko, head of information security service of Novikombank.

In addition, banks are afraid of the possibility of some overflow of funds from non-cash payments to digital rubles. According to the head of the Raiffeisenbank innovation center, Evgenia Ovchinnikova, this may affect the existing relationship between banks, shops and payment systems.

"It is also important that the digital ruble platform does not result in capital expenditures on the part of banks", emphasized Olga Makhovaya, director of innovations and data management at Rosbank.

The digital ruble is expected to help combat payment slavery when customer service is tied to a single credit institution.

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Russia
Bank Cyber Security Data Breach Russia

The data of potential borrowers of Bank Dom.RF are being sold on the Internet

 The data was obtained as a result of a leak. A representative of the bank explained its vulnerability in the remote filing of initial applications for cash loans

Data about people who applied for a loan from Bank Dom.RF were put up for sale on the Internet. The bank confirmed the leak. The Central Bank is conducting a check.

The data of Russians was put up for sale on a specialized website. The announcement was published on April 3. According to the owners, they have more than 100,000 records of those who have applied for a bank loan. The records date back to 2020-2021. They may include information about the loan amount request, phone numbers, email addresses, full names, date of birth, passport information, TIN, SNILS, home and work addresses, job title, income and proxy information. The database sells for 100 thousand rubles ($1,308), individual lines for 7-15 rubles ($0.09 - 0.20).

Bank Dom.RF belongs to the same name financial development institution in the housing sector, which is fully controlled by the state. It is in the top 20 banks in terms of capital and in the top 3 in terms of the mortgage portfolio. It was formed in 2017 on the basis of the bank Rossiyskiy Kapital, which is being reorganized.

Dom.RF reported that the leak was due to a vulnerability in remote initial cash loan applications. The bank notes that the data prevents access to customer accounts. "As part of operational work, it was eliminated in a short time, at the moment all the bank's systems are functioning normally. For preventive purposes, the security service of Dom.RF checked the integrity of all other systems of the bank and found no violations," reported the bank.

Russian media have already checked the data from a database. Six people responded and four of them confirmed that they had applied to the bank for a loan or were already its clients.

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Ukraine
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Crime Cyber News PrivatBank Ukraine

Ukraine’s PrivatBank Database for Sale on a Hacking Forum

 

PrivatBank is the biggest commercial bank in Ukraine, as far as the number of customers, assets value, loan portfolio, and taxes paid to the national budget are considered. Headquartered in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, the bank was nationalized by the government of Ukraine to ensure its 20 million clients and to preserve "financial stability in the country", on 18 December 2016. 

As per their site, PrivatBank's net profit for 2020 was 25.3 billion UAH, which is around $910 million. The database is said to contain 40 million records of customers such as full name, DOB, taxpayer identification number, place of birth, passport details, family status, etc. 

Ukraine has a population of 44 million, and the database’s 40 million records would cover 93% of the population. In any case, it isn't evident whether these are unique records, and it would be improbable that PrivatBank has records of 93% of Ukraine's population, considering ages that wouldn't have bank accounts. 

The threat actor is asking $3,400 in bitcoin for the release of the database. At the point when CyberNews took a gander at the bitcoin address provided, it gives the idea that nobody has purchased the database yet from that specific wallet. However, it is additionally conceivable that the threat actor is generating another wallet for each sale, a process that can be done automatically.

In 2016, hackers allegedly took $10 million from the bank through a loophole in the SWIFT international banking system. Before then, in 2014, the pro-Russian hacker group CyberBerkut asserted credit for hacking into the bank and mining client information, and afterward publishing the information on the Russian social media platform VKontakte. This was obvious retaliation for a PrivatBank accomplice who offered a $10,000 bounty for capturing Russian-backed militants in Ukraine. Earlier in 2014, another group named Green Dragon asserted credit for a DDoS assault on PrivatBank and guaranteed it got to client information during the assault. 

A 2018 report by a US corporate investigations company stated that “PrivatBank was subjected to a large scale and coordinated fraud over at least a ten-year period ending December 2016, which resulted in the Bank suffering a loss of at least USD 5.5 billion.”
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Russian Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Security Russia Russian Cyber Security

The Central Bank conducted remote anti-hacker exercises for the first time

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation summed up the results of the cyber exercises held in November-December 2020, designed to test the information security systems of Russian financial organizations.

The intention to launch cyber training for the Russian banking sector was announced in 2019 by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. According to the organizer, the exercises should be held in the format of stress testing for resistance to cyber threats once every two years.

22 organizations voluntarily participated in the past cyber-trainings. According to Vyacheslav Kasimov, Director of the Information Security Department of Credit Bank of Moscow, various situations of responding to incidents were practiced and procedures for interaction with the Bank of Russia were tested.

According to Mikhail Ivanov, Director of the Information Security Department of Rosbank, "participation in cyber training is primarily an opportunity to demonstrate its reliability to the regulator".

The Bank of Russia's audits are aimed at ensuring that banks comply with the established requirements and determine whether their infrastructure is designed and implemented correctly in terms of cybersecurity.

As Vitaly Zadorozhny, head of the cybersecurity department of Alfa-Bank, explains," they check the level of cyber-hygiene in the organization, but they do not allow determining how effectively the bank will operate when attacked.”

Artem Sychev, the First Deputy Director of the Information Security Department of the Central Bank, said that cyber training makes it possible to quickly identify the risks of financial organizations.

At the same time, the Bank of Russia has recently fined 17 banks for non-compliance with the requirements of the information security system. 

At the same time, the consequences for those tested with the new approach of the Central Bank are getting tougher. If a fine is issued based on the results of the checks, then the Bank of Russia may potentially worsen the risk profile of the credit institution based on the results of the cyber studies.

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Sberbank
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Attacks Information Security News Russia Sberbank

Sberbank is the most targeted organization in Europe by hackers, says Herman Gref

 At the moment, Sberbank is more often than other institutions in Europe is subjected to hacker attacks, but successfully repels them, said the head of the credit institution Herman Gref speaking at a plenary session in the Federation Council with a presentation on artificial intelligence (AI).

“We are the most attacked institution in Europe. Every day, artificial intelligence inside our Cyber ​​Security Center analyzes billions of events. During this entire period of time, we did not allow a single penetration into our systems,” said Mr. Gref.

Gref stressed that the AI protects not only the credit institution itself but also its customers. According to the banker, citizens who use the services of Sberbank are protected in 97% of cases: the systems recognize that a person is trying to transfer funds to a fraudster.

"In 97% of cases, our algorithms recognize fraud, stop these transactions, contact the person, the person confirms that he made this transaction, and we tell him that it was a fraudster," added Gref.

According to the head of Sberbank, in cyber attacks, scammers use artificial intelligence technologies, in particular, deepfake technologies, which allow simulating the face and voice of the client.

"Scammers can call from your phone that belongs to you, speak with your voice. And this is a gigantic threat. It is extremely difficult for a normal person to fight this, and therefore powerful systems for protecting a person from such fakes should come to the rescue,” noted Gref.

According to the Bank of Russia, in the first nine months of 2020, fraudsters stole about 6.5 billion rubles from bank customers from their cards and accounts. Sberbank estimates that since the beginning of 2020, fraudsters have called customers about 15 million times. Sberbank recorded more than 3.4 million customer complaints about phone fraud in the first half of the year, which is 30 times more than in 2017 and more than twice as much as in 2019.

"The number of fraudulent calls in Russia reaches 100 thousand per day", said Stanislav Kuznetsov, deputy chairman of the bank.

Earlier, E Hacking News reported that according to Sberbank cyber criminals are using Artificial Intelligence in banking Trojan which is quite difficult to recognize.

Read more »
User Data
Bank Cyber Security Data Breach Data Leak Financial Data Breach User Data

Sensitive Data of 7 Million Indian Cardholders Circulating On Dark Web


There is a rapid increase in the number of data breaches last year, jumping by 17%, which has become an increasingly serious issue. Recently, sensitive data of 7 million debit and credit cardholders has been circulating on the dark web.

The 2GB database included names, contact numbers, email addresses, Permanent Account Number, income details, and employers' firm.

As per the screenshots of the leaked data, the details were found on a public Google Drive document discovered by Rajshekhar Rajaharia, an Internet cybersecurity researcher who informed Inc42, warning that as the private data pertains to the finances, it is highly valuable and can potentially be used by malicious actors to develop phishing attacks.

The database that also included the PAN numbers of around 5 lakh users, relates to the time period between 2010 and 2019 which could be of extreme significance to cybercriminals and scammers, per se. Although the card numbers were not available in the database, Rajaharia managed to verify the details for certain users including himself. He matched the LinkedIn profiles of the names mentioned in the list, and it proved to be accurate.

In a conversation with Suriya Prakash, Sr Security Researcher Cyber Security and Privacy Foundation Pte Ltd, Ehacking News attempted to understand the source of the breach: He said, "These usually don't originate at the bank level as they have secure environments. Regulators and banks often misunderstand this and spend crores securing infrastructure."

"The main source of data breaches are usually due to bank employees using their official emails to create accounts in third-party sites (social media etc). When these third parties get breached its causes issues for the bank. This can be simply avoided by putting in the SOP that employees should not use their official emails for other services, any usage should get written permission from the admin team. If this is strictly enforced majority of data breaches can be avoided."

"Also websites that collect payments like e-commerce sites should be brought user RBI regulations as they too might be causes of the breach," he concluded.
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Russia
Bank Cyber Security Central Bank of Russia Cyber Security IT Security News Russia

Banks offered the Central Bank of Russia to create a centralized mechanism to combat fraudsters

According to the Vice-President of the Association of Banks of Russia Alexey Voilukov, information processing can take several hours or even days, while a fraudster can withdraw money from the card within an hour.

President of the Association of Banks of Russia Georgy Luntovsky sent a letter to Vadim Uvarov, Director of the Information Security Department of the Bank of Russia, with a proposal to organize direct interaction between market participants in order to exchange data on suspicious transactions.

Now financial organizations use an automated system to inform the Regulator about all operations that have signs of being performed without the knowledge of customers. Then the Regulator accumulates all the collected data about attacks and returns them to banks in a consolidated form. According to Alexey Voilukov, information processing can take several hours or even days, while a fraudster can withdraw money from the card to which they were withdrawn within an hour. 

Mr. Voilukov noted that the creation of a centralized mechanism will speed up the exchange of information by about five times, and the time for providing information in some cases will be reduced to 20-30 minutes.

"For example, several people complained to the Bank about unauthorized transfers within an hour. It detects a fraudulent account and promptly sends information about it to the organizations from which the money was transferred. With a quick response, there is a chance to prevent theft," he explained Mr. Voilukov. According to him, this scheme of work will allow us to fight against fraudsters who work using social engineering methods.

The Central Bank told that they will study the proposals. VTB, MKB, Rosbank and Tinkoff support the Association of Banks of Russia initiative. VTB added that the system for exchanging information on incidents needs to be improved, as this will speed up and automate the processes of the rapid response of banks to fraudulent attacks.

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Russia
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Fraud Cyber Security awareness Russia

Russian Cyber Criminals started using bots to deceive victims

Fraudulent call centers started using bots to filtering distrustful victims in order to force them to call back and assist them on their own

According to experts, this approach makes it possible to reduce the cost of attacks on victims and increase conversion.

"The robot says: "Your card in this bank is blocked, call us back at this number”. When the victim calls back, allegedly the bank's security officers answer, ” explained Artem Gavrichenkov, technical director of Qrator Labs. He added that scammers make up to hundreds of calls a day using such robots.

Fraudsters also use fake IP telephony service numbers, bulk SMS sending services and messages in Messengers on behalf of the Bank, said Sergei Nikitin, deputy head of the Group-IB computer forensics laboratory.

The fraudsters in this case used "reverse social engineering", said Alexey Drozd, head of the information security department at SerchInform. In such cases, the victim calls the attackers.

Andrey Zaikin, Head of Information Security at CROC, explained that people are not used to the use of robots by scammers, this increases the credibility of hackers.

The technology also makes the attack cheaper, adds Mikhail Kondrashin, technical Director of Trend Micro in Russia and the CIS. A robot is a simple software for auto-calling, notes Mr. Zaikin. Developers of voice platforms usually do not charge a fee for creating such a bot, and the average cost of a call is 2.5–3.5 rubles ($0.3-$0.4) per minute.

Previously, many fake call centers operated from prisons, but recently, according to Group-IB, most are organized outside and sometimes even abroad. According to experts, international cooperation at the state level is necessary to neutralize them.

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Information Security News
Bank Cyber Security Banking fraud Cyber Fraud Information Security News

New types of fraud related to Bank cards of Russian Banks have been spotted

Fraudsters encourage Bank customers to withdraw funds at a branch or ATM on their own and then transfer money to the account of the attackers

"There are cases when fraudsters, through psychological influence on the client, ask to transfer funds through an ATM and/or withdraw funds through the cashier, while providing fake documents from the Bank," said Mikhail Ivanov, Director of the Information Security Department of RosBank.

Stanislav Pavlunin, Vice President and Security Director of Pochta Bank, noted that this is one of the latest schemes of cybercriminals, which is a kind of the most common method of fraud - social engineering.

The vast majority of fraudulent operations are carried out using social engineering methods, explained Ilya Suloev, Director of the Information Security Department of Otkritie Bank. This was confirmed by Sberbank, which since the beginning of 2020 has recorded almost 2.9 million customer requests about fraudulent attempts. In comparison with 2019, the number of such requests has more than doubled.

The most popular way to influence potential victims is still phone calls. According to OTP Bank, fraudsters can be represented by employees of the security service of the Bank or government agencies. 

The number of telephone fraud attempts has increased this year, confirmed Oleg Kuserov, Managing Director of Absolut Bank.

"The growth of such attacks is associated, in our opinion, both with an increase in the number of fraudulent call centers and with major data leaks in 2020 from various enterprises, including online stores," said Vyacheslav Kasimov, Director of the Information Security Department of Credit Bank of Moscow.

Sergey Afanasyev, Executive Director and Head of the Statistical Analysis Department of Renaissance Credit Bank, also noted that another common type of Bankcard fraud, in addition to social engineering, is phishing — stealing money through fraudulent duplicate sites.


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National Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Belarus Cyber Security Cyber Attacks Hackers News National Cyber Security

Hackers threaten to bring down the tax, energy and banking system of Belarus

A group of hackers threatens to bring down the tax, energy and banking systems of Belarus if the head of state Alexander Lukashenko does not comply with the ultimatum

The union of hackers and IT-developers of Belarus has threatened President Alexander Lukashenko to bring down the tax, energy and banking systems if security forces continue to detain protesters.

The statement of attackers was published in the Telegram channel "Cyber Partisans". They demand that Lukashenko stop the arrests by September 13, go out with a loudspeaker and publicly apologize to the population, as well as leave his post. And if this does not happen, "Belarus will forget what taxes are."

"Alexander Lukashenko, we are addressing you personally. It will be very painful, first, the tax system will break down, then the electricity in the country will run out, then the banking system will break down… Do you need it?" the hackers asked the President of the Republic. In addition, the hackers stressed that they are able to "kill the ruble" and start blocking the bank accounts of people from Lukashenko's inner circle.

Recall that after the announcement of the election results in Belarus, mass protests began. The protesters are demanding Lukashenko's resignation and new fair elections. In addition, citizens report violence by the security forces.

The European Union refused to recognize the victory of Lukashenko, and the Kremlin, on the contrary, congratulated the permanent leader of the Republic on the next term.

An interesting fact is that during the elections and in the following days, the Internet stopped working several times in the country. The Belarusian authorities called the cause of the failure a cyberattack from abroad, but later it became known that the equipment for blocking local state security agencies was provided by the American company Sandvine.

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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Bank Cyber Security Bank Information Security Russia Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Experts identified flaw that allows criminals to steal money using Faster Payments System (FPS)


Experts have identified a flaw that allows criminals to steal money from accounts of clients of banks through the Faster Payments System (FPS),  which is often opposed to the idea of a crypto-ruble.

The experts found out that when the function of transfers via the FPS in the mobile bank was activated, one of the credit institutions was left vulnerable. Fraudsters were able to take advantage of this error and get customer account data.

Then the attackers launched the mobile bank in debug mode,  logged in as real clients, and sent a request to transfer funds to another bank, only instead of their account they indicated the account number of another client for debiting. Since the system does not verify the ownership of the account, it debited the money and transferred it to the fraudsters.

According to market participants, this is the first case of theft of funds using the FPS. The vulnerability could only be known by someone familiar with the application: an employee or developer.

The Central Bank noted that the problem was found in the mobile app of only one credit institution and promptly eliminated. 

Yaroslav Babin, head of web application security analysis at Positive Technologies, said that using the FPS is safe, but there may be problems in the applications of individual banks.

According to him, if hackers found a vulnerability in the application of a credit institution, the client will not be able to influence the safety of their funds in any way. All responsibility lies with the Bank that developed and released the app.

Babin recommends that banks pay more attention to system security analysis, implement secure development methods, and analyze the source code of all public applications or their updates before publishing them.

It is worth noting that the Faster Payments System is a service that allows individuals to instantly transfer money by mobile phone number to themselves or others. At the moment, all the largest credit organizations in Russia and more than 70 banks are connected to the FPS.

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Russian Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Dark Web Darknet Data Breach Russian Cyber Security

The data of clients of the Russian bank Alfa-Bank leaked to the Network


On June 22, a message appeared on the Darknet about the sale of a database of clients of the largest Russian banks. The seller did not specify how many records he has on hand but assured that he is ready to upload 5 thousand lines of information per week.

One of the Russian Newspapers had a screenshot of a test fragment of the Alfa-Bank database, which contains 64 lines. Each of them has the full name, city of residence, mobile phone number of the citizen, as well as the account balance and document renewal date.

A newspaper managed to reach up to six clients using these numbers. Two of them confirmed that they have an account with Alfa-Bank and confirmed the relevance of the balance.

Alfa-Bank confirmed that they know about the data leak of several dozen clients.
The seller of Alfa-Bank's database said that he also has confidential information of clients of other credit organizations.

"I can sell a database of VTB clients with a balance of 500 thousand rubles or more with an update from July 17 for 100 rubles per entry," claimed the seller. However, the Russian newspaper was not able to get test fragments of these databases.

The newspaper also contacted two other sellers who offered information about users of Gazprombank, VTB, Pochta Bank, Promsvyazbank, and Home Credit Bank.
Information about the account balance is classified as a Bank secret. Knowing such confidential details makes it easier for attackers to steal money using social engineering techniques.

"There are two ways to get bases on the black market. One of them is the leak of data by an insider from a Bank or company. The second option is through remote banking vulnerabilities," said Ashot Hovhannisyan, founder of the DLBI leak intelligence service.
According to him, the reason for the ongoing leaks is inefficient investments in security. Companies often protect their systems from hacking from outside, but not from insiders.

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Russian Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Cyber Security Cyber Security awareness Mobile Bank Hacking Russian Cyber Security

Russian experts gave tips on protecting a mobile Bank from fraudsters


Two-factor authentication and compliance with digital hygiene rules can protect users from hacking a mobile Bank on smartphone

According to experts, mobile banking programs are quite secure, so most often funds are stolen due to user errors.

“More often, cybercriminals call customers of financial institutions or use malware,” said Sergei Golovanov, a leading expert at Kaspersky Lab. In this case, users may accidentally give fraudsters the card details and login passwords.

Andrey Arsentiev, head of Analytics and Special Projects at InfoWatch Group, believes that any applications are vulnerable to hacking if malware is installed.

Vladimir Ulyanov, head of the Zecurion analytical center, is sure that users need to configure two-factor authentication to get an additional one-time code. At the same time, the specialist believes that the spyware installed on the smartphone can intercept the SMS code from the Bank. "It is more secure to perform operations and receive confirmation codes on different devices," Ulyanov said.

"Install the software on your phone only from authorized, approved sources (App Store and Google Play)," said Ruslan Suleymanov, Director of information technology at ESET Russia. In his opinion, customers of credit organizations need to have a separate card for online purchases, set daily limits for transfers, and regularly change passwords.

"You can't tell anyone your card details or login details to the customer Bank by telephone. Not a single bank makes such official requests on its behalf,” concluded Suleymanov.
According to the founder of DeviceLock Ashot Hovhannisyan, it is best not to use a mobile Bank, but to log in to your personal account on a computer protected by antivirus. If mobile banking is important, then you should stop using a jailbreak and installing dubious programs through alternative stores.

In addition, Roskachestvo experts have recommended that users should regularly update the software on their devices, even if they do not see a particular need for it. Otherwise, it can lead to unpleasant consequences.

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