Hackers Steal £7.5m Through Targeted ATM Attacks

Following the news that hackers are suspected of stealing nearly $10m (£7.5m) from 20 companies in Russia, the UK and US through targeted ATM attacks, Adam Maskatiya, UK General Manager at Kaspersky Lab commented below.

Adam Maskatiya, UK General Manager at Kaspersky Lab:

“It’s imperative that banks regularly assess security policies and procedures, including outlying areas of their infrastructure such as ATMs, and look at how to protect the sensitive data within. Banks should consider applying cybersecurity solutions to minimise unauthorised access to such information. To do this, they should put themselves in the place of the attacker, determine the points of potential vulnerability and then apply a multi-layered defence strategy.

Kaspersky Lab’s advice to banks is as follows:

• Put in place measures that address vulnerabilities that offer an open door to any cybercriminal intent on gaining control over your IT systems.
• Use security specialists that have expertise in memory forensics, which increasingly is becoming critical to the analysis of malware and its functions as attackers try to hide their activity and make detection and incident response increasingly difficult.
• Follow a carefully directed incident response, which is key to solving even the perfectly prepared cybercrime, and to prevent an attack from spreading.
• Banks need to ensure they protect their ATMs, not just the bank IT infrastructure. Kaspersky Embedded Systems Security is specially designed to protect these systems against attacks targeting their contents and exploiting their limitations.”