Leader of the Carbanak Hacker Group Whole Stole € 1 Billion Bank Robbery Arrested In Spain

The Leader of the Carbanak Hacker group behind € 1 Billion Bank Robbery arrested by law enforcement agencies in Spain. The group targets more than 100 financial institutions worldwide.

The Carbank hacker group is active since 2013 have attempted attacks against various banks, financial institutions, the e-payment gateway with their well-designed malware dubbed Cobalt.

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Banks targeted by Carbanak Hacker Group

The Hacker attacked banks in more than 40 countries and that results in more than EUR 1 billion loss in the financial industry. “The magnitude of the losses is significant: the Cobalt malware alone allowed criminals to steal up to EUR 10 million per heist” reads the official statement.

Carbank hacker group started activities in late 2013 by launching Anunak malware campaign targetting ATM networks and financial networks around the world.

Later starting 2014 they improved the Anunak malware into a more sophisticated version of the malware dubbed as Carbanak and the same used up to 2016.

After 2016 the Carbanak Hacker Group developer customized malware based on the Cobalt Strike penetration testing tool to the sophisticated wave of attacks.

Attacking Methods

In all of their attacks, they use to send a spear phishing email to the bank employes with malicious attachments and once the malware executed they gain access to the Internal banking system remotely and infects servers that control’s ATM.

By infecting the servers that control’s ATM attackers can instruct ATMs to dispense cash at a particular time and organized group members sitting beside the ATM machine to collect cash.

The attackers transfer money from other legitimate accounts to their own bank accounts and then empty’s the account.They also artificially add’s balance into their accounts and then empty’s the same.

“This global operation is a significant success for international police cooperation against a top-level cybercriminal organization. The arrest of the key figure in this crime group illustrates that cybercriminals can no longer hide behind perceived international anonymity” says Steven Wilson.