Hackers Steal $31 Million at Russia's Central Bank (cnn.com)

The Bank of Russia has confirmed Friday that hackers have stolen 2 billion rubles ($31 million) from correspondent accounts at the Russian central bank. Central bank security executive Artiom Sychev said it could've been much worse as hackers tried to steal 5 billion rubles, but the central banking authority managed to stop them. CNNMoney reports: Hackers also targeted the private banks and stole cash from their clients, the central bank reported. The central bank did not say when the heist occurred or how hackers moved the funds. But so far, the attack bears some similarity to a recent string of heists that has targeted the worldwide financial system. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm Symantec have concluded that the global banking system has been under sustained attack from a sophisticated group -- dubbed "Lazarus" -- that has been linked to North Korea. But it's unclear who has attacked Russian banks this time around. Earlier Friday, the Russian government claimed it had foiled an attempt to erode public confidence in its financial system. Russian's top law enforcement agency, the FSB, said hackers were planning to use a collection of computer servers in the Netherlands to attack Russian banks. Typically, hackers use this kind of infrastructure to launch a "denial of service" attack, which disrupts websites and business operations by flooding a target with data. The FSB said hackers also planned to spread fake news about Russian banks, sending mass text messages and publishing stories on social media questioning their financial stability and licenses to operate.

Comments

Re:Why can't they roll it back?

[Fire_Wraith]

In theory they could.

The basic problem is that it's equivalent to the Russian government printing 2 billion rubles and handing it to the bank to replace a physical theft. There's still the matter of the stolen 2 billion rubles floating around out there. If you don't deal with that somehow, by tracing it down and freezing/deleting it (at which point you're effectively returning it), then all you've done is magically create 2 billion rubles.

Needless to say, this can lead to some serious problems in the long run.