UPDATE 2: Fraudsters steal money from banks’ clients via smartphone – experts

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MOSCOW, Oct 23 (PRIME) -- Cybercriminals now install a remote access program on a smartphone to steal money from banks’ clients, Ilya Sachkov, head and founder of Russian cybersecurity company Group-IB, told PRIME on Wednesday.

“The new scam is an effort to force banks’ clients to install a program of remote access on a smartphone and steal money. An average monthly loss through this fraud can range between 6 to 10 million rubles for a big bank,” Sachkov said.

“Within six months system Secure Bank has been registering more than 1,000 efforts on average a month to withdraw cash from private customers’ accounts via the remote access program.”

Sachkov also said that losses of local banks from attacks shrank 13 times in July 2018–June to some 100 million rubles with more than 80% of theft done through social engineering.

“I can say that cybercriminals have stolen slightly more than 1 million rubles a day on average from companies and citizens of Russia this year,” Sachkov said.

“I can quote the latest figure from our report: through phishing and Android Trojan viruses, which are still widely exploited, perpetrators stole on average 800,000 rubles a day from Russians (in July 2018–June).”

The expert named Cobalt, Silence, MoneyTaker, Lazarus, and SilentCards as a threat for banks. “They can break into a bank, get to isolated financial systems and withdraw money from the bank,” he said.

“It’s interesting that three of the five – Cobalt, Silence, and MoneyTaker – speak Russian, but Cobalt and Silence have started attacking banks mainly outside Russia during the recent year.”

After local targets, Silence also switched its focus to the CIS and the global market, the expert said. Group-IB detected Silence’s attacks in more than 30 countries of Europe, Asia, and the CIS.

(63.6336 rubles – U.S. $1)

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