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

Smart Criminals

[Fluffeh]

I like stories like this. If something is done really well and in a clever way (whether it was really being naughty or not) the effort, cleverness and ingenuity should indeed have its merits praised. Slashdot should have more stories like this: Hey, they did a bad thing, but look at just how WELL they did it.

Re:Smart Criminals

[ls671]

Where do you think those US banks are going to take the money to make it up? In their customer pockets maybe? It's like insurance fraud, shoplifting etc. The end consumer ends up paying for that. We might think; well they already make enough money so, good for them but don't let that fool you. They are going to make up for that to keep investors happy and their stock healthy.

Worse, they may have insurance coverage and insurance companies may raise premium for all banks making sure everybody pays for it.

Sure, it looks nice as a hacker movie scenario although...

Re:Smart Criminals

[sound vision]

In that situation, the woman hadn't committed any wrong against the man. Maybe didn't even know him. On the other hand, banks rape the people on a daily basis...

Re:Smart Criminals

[ls671]

Supermarkets have a typical profit margin of 1 to 2%. It means that if you steal 10$ worth of food they need to sell 1000-2000$ worth more to make it up unless they already have calculated the shoplifting costs in their 1-2% profit margin. No store stays open for long without makings profits so your "profit maximization" argument makes no sense.

Any businessman will factor in all costs, like hiring more cashier, security guards, security cameras, utility bills etc. when determining their sale prices, it is economy 101.

The goal for any business is to keep shoplifting as low as possible for the cheapest cost ratio possible in order to be able to keep prices down and maximize profits.

Re:Smart Criminals

[geekymachoman]

End consumer (commoners) always end up paying, one way or another, in all situations. Nothing new there.

Sometimes I think that instead of being a obedient sheep, waking up early, working 10 hours and generally being exploited while barely having enough for comfortable "life", I should turn to let's say.. victimless crime*.
I know this is frowned upon by society, but only because those in power are propagating idea that we should be obedient.. so they can keep all the f money and have less competition.
The banks are criminals, the politicians are criminals, the religious leaders are criminals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, governments, etc. In modern world, they just upped it to a new, modern level. It's not corruption same as in 3rd world country, but it still exist just behind the curtains and/or through loopholes they made for themselves.

I know people that acquired wealth by pillaging (literally), smuggling cigarettes and guns. Now they are respected businessmen that have legal businesses, and are hiring you to work 10 hours a day for them while they propagate the idea that doing anything "illegal" is bad. Exactly the same as those mentioned above are doing.
It's all just to keep you in check and under control. Every each one of them are full of it.

(*) = As a programmer, that would be let's say hacking wordpress sites and selling them to someone or using them to make a profit. System Administrators should be happy. This creates jobs for them.

Re:Smart Criminals

[ls671]

Don't forget gross margin is not real profit. Net profit margin is. Gross margin doesn't take into account salaries, rent, utility bills, security camera installation and maintenance etc. And of course; lost due to shoplifting.

Tracing the Transfer

[nuckfuts]

When money is stolen like this, it must be transferred to an account somewhere. Why is it not a simple matter to trace where the funds were transferred to and go after them?