Skip to main content

Eastern Europe banks targeted in new on-site cyber robberies

Published on: 8 Jan 2019

At least eight banks in Eastern Europe have been targeted in a series of cyber robberies, resulting in estimated losses running into tens of millions of dollars.

In each case, the corporate network was breached via an unknown device, controlled by the attackers, which had been smuggled into a company building and connected to the network.

The attackers used three types of devices: a laptop, a Raspberry Pi (a single-board computer size of a credit card) or a Bash Bunny (a specially designed tool for automating and conducting USB attacks), equipped with a GPRS, 3G- or LTE- modem that allowed the attackers to penetrate remotely the corporate network of the financial organisation.

Once the connection was established, the cyber criminals tried to gain access to the web servers to steal the data they needed to run RDP (remote desktop protocol) on a selected computer and then seize funds or data.

This fileless method of attack included the use of Impacket, winexesvc.exe, or psexec.exe remote execution toolkits. In the final stage, the attackers used remote control software to maintain access to the infected computer.

Sergey Golovanov, security expert at Kaspersky Lab - which discovered the attacks, said: “Over the past year and a half, we’ve been observing a completely new type of attacks on banks, quite sophisticated and complex in terms of detection. The entry point to the corporate network remained unknown for a long time, since it could be located in any office in any region.

“These unknown devices, smuggled in and hidden by intruders, could not be found remotely. Additionally, the threat actor used legitimate utilities, which complicated the incident response even more.”

Photo: FangXiaNuo/iStock