Indian Banks Targeted by Hackers


Bangalore: In recent years we have witnessed hackers targeting countries like Germany, Italy and United Kingdom. But now the trend seemed to have changed as the hackers are increasingly targeting India, especially the Indian financial institutions. According to Japanese antivirus Trend Micro, cyber criminals are using new variants of malwares like SpyEye and Zeus to phish into Indian websites that are mainly associated with financial institutions. Large number of strikes has been reported in cities like Hyderabad, Nashik, New Delhi and Bangalore.

According to Trend Micro, the numbers that define the phishing attacks on various Indian brands has simply gone off the chart, which is a whopping 187 percent rise. Statistics tells that in the month of May all the phishing attacks were targeted against the banking sector, with one in every four hacks targeting the ‘.in’ domain.

Trend Micro's country manager Amit Nath said that "The new software allows the criminal to siphon money out while he sleeps. It could significantly increase the number of hacked accounts and the speed with which they are drained."

The report also spoke about Automatic online banking fraud or automatic transfer system that hackers use. The two new deadly malware SpyEye and Zeus uses a technique called ‘web injection’, which generates new entry fields when victims log on to any number of banks. What this program does is that instead of asking for the account number and password, the ATM asks for both and an ATM card number. Now everything that is typed in reaches the hacker, who later signs in and transfers money to a co-conspirators account.

"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. This has tremendous implications especially as masses are moving towards banking by phone. This attack toolkit ushers in a new era of bank heists," Nath added.