Servers of 60 Banks Compromised In Continuing Worldwide Hack Attack

Security firms McAfee and Guardian Analytics have jointly reported on a massive hacking attack on the world’s banks and other financial institutions, more than 60 in all. The scale of the attack suggests an “insider level of understanding”, but worst of all, it’s continuing. The fraudster’s objective is to steal large amounts of money from high balance accounts and if all the attempted fraud was successful, the total amount stolen could reach a truly massive 2bn Euro (1.6bn) which is something that the beleaguered Eurozone really doesn’t need right now.

This attack is very different from most, because it doesn’t rely on the usual tricking of potential marks into handing over their details or the use of infected websites. This time, the malware is running on the very servers run by the banks, stealing money automatically without any human intervention, targeting businesses and individuals alike. One of the big headaches of this malware infection, is that some of the usual checks for detecting fraud simply don’t work, because it can hide its activity much more effectively.

The malware works by stealing money in chunks of 100,000 Euro (80,000) at a time and sends it to mule accounts set up by the fraudsters. The attack started in Europe, including Britain, but has quickly spread to North and South America and is continuing.