Russian hacker group secretly steals nearly $ 10 million from ATM Banks

A Russian-language hacker group silently steals nearly US $ 10 million from at least 18 banks in the United States, Russia and Britain. They have committed this theft in recent years by targeting the interbank transfer system, according to a report from Moscow-based cyber security firm.

Group-IB warns of these attacks that started 18 months ago and allowed hackers to steal money from bank ATM machines is likely to continue and will target the banks in Latin America in the future.

The first attack occurred in the spring of 2016. The victims of the attacks were the banks in the First Data's STAR network. The network is a messaging system used by banks in the US to connect ATMs from more than 5,000 organizations, says Group-IB researcher.

In an official statement, First Data said that a number of financial institutions using the STAR network were burglarized for issuing debit cards in early 2016. First Data then implements the mandatory security controls. They said the STAR network itself was never hacked.

First Data also revealed that they will continue to investigate a number of instances when hackers learned how to transfer through the SWIFT banking system. However, they did not say whether the attack had been successfully implemented or not.

Group-IB names this hacker group "MoneyTaker". They identified 18 banks that had been victimized. A total of 15 of them are in the US, 2 in Russia and 1 in the UK. The hacker group is also targeting financial software companies and one law firm.

They also made sure that their trail of operations was not visible. To hide themselves they use security certificates from companies like Bank of America, the US government, Microsoft and Yahoo. 

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