Cybercriminals adopt spies’ techniques to pull off online bank heists

The times when stealthy, persistent and advanced malware was associated only with cyberespionage are gone. Criminals are now using similar threats and techniques to steal millions of dollars from financial institutions.

Last year researchers from security vendor Kaspersky Lab were called in to investigate unusual thefts from 29 banks and other organizations located in Russia, leading to the discovery of three new sophisticated attack campaigns. Their findings were presented Monday during the company’s annual Security Analyst Summit.

One group of attackers is using a modular malware program known as Metel or Corkow to infect computer systems belonging to banks and to reverse ATM transactions. During a single night, the gang stole millions of rubles from a Russian bank using this hard-to-detect transaction rollback trick.

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