Three Banks Lose Millions After Wire Transfer Switches Hacked

mask.of.sanity writes "Criminals have stolen millions from three unnamed U.S. banks by launching slow and stealthy denial of service attacks as a distraction before attacking wire payment switches. The switches manage and execute wire transfers and could have coughed up much more cash should the attackers have pressed on. RSA researcher Limor Kessem said, 'The service portal is down, the bank is losing money and reliability, and the security team is juggling the priorities of what to fix first. That's when the switch attack – which is very rare because those systems are not easily compromised [and require] high-privilege level in a more advanced persistent threat style case – takes place.'"

Comments

stealthy?

[phantomfive]

slow and stealthy denial of service attacks

I don't think a DOS can be stealthy......if it's denying service, are people going to notice?

Re:You know I really love

[pslytely psycho]

From the article....
"The researchers said fraudsters were using Dirt Jumper, a $200 crimeware kit that launches DDoS attacks, to draw bank employees' attention away from fraudulent wire and ACH transactions ranging from $180,000 to $2.1 million in attempted transfers."

Sounds like theft to me. Now granted it says "attempted transfers," but, I think someone made themselves very rich while only giving the banking system a minor scratch. A few million is pocket change in the land of banking.

Re:Smart Criminals

[bobstreo]

Actual supermarket profit margins statistics:
http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=204979

Re:Smart Criminals

[ls671]

Profit margin isn't constant from year to year, look at the averages. Some even have negative averages. I would say the average of all the averages is around 1-2% over the years, say 3% if that makes you happy ;-) Oh, and this is from 2009 to 2013. Not a decade ago:
Link 1:
http://ycharts.com/companies/LBLCF/profit_margin
Link 2:
http://ycharts.com/companies/SWY/profit_margin
Link 3:
http://ycharts.com/companies/KR/profit_margin
Link 4:
http://ycharts.com/companies/SVU/profit_margin
Link 5:
http://ycharts.com/companies/WFM/profit_margin
Link 6:
http://ycharts.com/companies/NGVC/profit_margin