Hackers unleash cash transfer software

The software is expected to significantly increase the level of cyber-theft or computer-related fraud in markets such as Kenya where online fraud has been growing steadily and commercial banks are estimated to lose Sh3 billion to smart thieves every year.

Two of the most pervasive and dangerous types of software for stealing money from bank accounts have been improved and can now transfer money automatically without a hacker’s supervision, researchers have warned.

The latest variants of the widespread SpyEye and Zeus programmes have already stolen as much as 13,000 euros at a time from a single account and are in early stages of deployment, according to investigators at Trend Micro Inc, a Japan-based security company that has many banks as customers.

The software is expected to significantly increase the level of cyber-theft or computer-related fraud in markets such as Kenya where online fraud has been growing steadily and commercial banks are estimated to lose Sh3 billion to smart thieves every year.

A recent industry report by Serianu — an IT security consulting firm — found that the high level of exposure by Kenyan companies arises from the fact that most do not update their software in tandem with those of software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle.

IT security experts said the latest bank fraud software has unique capabilities such as the ability to squat in a local computer and stealing money from a local bank for transfer to a foreign bank account without leaving a trace.

That means any attempt to unravel the fraud would lead investigators to a local computer, whose owner or operator may not know that their machine had been used to commit a crime.

Trend Micro vice-president Tom Kellerman told Reuters that his company’s researchers had seen the new attacks on a dozen financial institutions in Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy.

That is troubling because European banks generally have greater technology defences than those in the US and other parts of the world, and Kellerman said it is “inevitable” that the variants will cross the Atlantic.

The new code has the potential to dramatically escalate the amount being stolen from accounts and a years-old arms race between the banks and criminal groups that are often based in Eastern Europe.

“This has tremendous implications,” especially as Americans move toward banking by phone, said Kellerman. “This attack toolkit ushers in a new era of bank heists.”

Like other security companies, Trend Micro profits by selling software and services to institutions and consumers worried about online spying and account takeovers.

Though written and controlled by different groups, SpyEye and Zeus share the ability to be installed on computers that visit malicious websites or legitimate pages that have been compromised by hackers. Both programmes are sold in the burgeoning underground hacking economy, where they can be customised or improved with additional modules like those just discovered.

The programmes already have used a technique called “web injection” to generate new entry fields when victims log on to any number of banks or other sensitive websites.

Instead of seeing a bank ask for an account number and password, for example, a victimised user sees requests for both of those and an ATM card number.

Everything typed in then gets whisked off to the hacker, who later signs in and transfers money to an accomplice’s account.