Organized Cybercrime’s New Bull’s-eye: Bankers

Cybercrime Targets Bankers

From Anunak to GCMAN and Metel to Carbanak, it is increasingly clear that organized cybercrime groups are becoming greedier than ever, no longer interested in volume attacks on bank customers. Rather, financially motivated adversaries are investing in attacking the source of liquid cash: banks. To get into these secure environments, they target the organization’s people, its first line of defense.

While bank customers are still the target for botnet-based attacks, bankers have become the top targets for organized advanced persistent threat (APT) groups.

Is this new? Why is it becoming an issue now? This detrimental trend has seen a significant escalation in number and scope, warranting greater awareness and new measures to bolster defense from within the organization.

The financial APT trend has been growing since mid-2014, making the headlines when the Anunak group was discovered setting its sights on the financial industry. Unfortunately, awareness to this sort of threat did not generate the necessary lessons, and the financial sector saw the same attackers strike in the biggest cyberheist ever: the Carbanak case, discovered in early 2015. Four more cases have since materialized, including specialized APT groups such as Lazarus that make it their business to attack banks, among other targets.

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