Turkish law enforcement officials announced this week the arrest of 17 members of a cyber criminal gang allegedly responsible for the theft of US $300,000 from various online banking customers (source).
Russian-Turkish Connection
According to law enforcement officials the Turkish cyber criminals worked in tandem with three Russian hackers (source). Presumably the Russian hackers were responsible for creating and distributing the malware used to steal the personal account information from victims of this attack. Once the Russian hackers harvested the account information they distributed the information to their Turkish affiliates who were able to use the stolen account information to withdrawal funds from the Turkish victims of this attack.
Tip of the Iceberg
While Turkish authorities were seemingly successful in disrupting this ongoing attack, it is likely the Russian hackers were also working with criminal gangs in other countries. Once these Russian hackers developed their malware it is likely they would have customized it to attack bank customers in various countries, wishing to take full advantage of their malware development.
Evidence for this assertion can be found in the details of cyber attack on the customers of the Swedish bank Nordea (Previous Report). The infamous Russian hacker ‘Korpsov’ allegedly carried out these attacks via a trojan that he created known as Haxdoor.ki. ‘Korpsov’ claimed, in the publication Computer Sweden, that the same Haxdoor.ki trojan was also used in a major attack against customers of an Australian bank (source).
Better Response Required
The internationalized nature of cyber crime requires an internationalized response. Simply arresting the lower level ‘money mule’ (Previous Report) operatives and allowing the cyber criminal masterminds to remain free is an ineffective strategy. These ‘money mules’, the individuals responsible for withdrawing funds from a compromised bank account and forwarding a percentage of the haul to the cyber criminal masterminds, can easily be recruited and replaced. The only way to truly impact the spread of online crime is to arrest and imprison the hacker masterminds responsible for planning and executing cyber attacks.
