Russian Hackers Infected 1 Million Bank Customer Smartphones
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
May 22, 2017
For all the accusations that Russian hacking only focuses outside the country – most notably to allegedly impact the outcome of democratic elections by exposing politicians’ dirty laundry – a Reuters report overnight revealed that Russian cyber criminals were just as eager to focus on their fellow countymen, using malware planted on Android mobile devices to steal from domestic bank customers and were planning to target European lenders before their arrest. The enterprising hackers targeted customers of state lender Sberbank, and also stole money from accounts at Alfa Bank and online payments company Qiwi, exploiting weaknesses in the companies’ SMS text message transfer services.
Russia’s Interior Ministry said a number of people had been arrested, including the alleged gang leader. This was a 30-year-old man living in Ivanovo, an industrial city 300 km (185 miles) northeast of Moscow, from where he had commanded a team of 20 people across six different regions. Four people remain in detention while the others are under house arrest, the ministry said in a statement.
“In the course of 20 searches across six regions, police seized computers, hundreds of bank cards and SIM cards registered under fake names,” it said.
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