Luuuk Banking Fraud Compromising Mobile Bank Users

More than 190 customers of a European bank were reportedly robbed of £400,000, with most customers located in Italy and Turkey, according to Kaspersky Lab.

The code-named Luuuk operation utilized a Trojan program that was able to steal financial data, and each time a person entered username and passwords on banking websites.  It seems similar to the Zeus malware, but researchers are still trying to study more.

Interestingly, criminals transfer money into their accounts and then will retrieve the cash via ATM machines, which is rather unusual.  Each person involved in the “drops” receive different amounts, based on trust within the organization.

Here is what Vicente Diaz, Kaspersky Lab Principal Security, in a press statement:

“On the C&C server we detected there was no information as to which specific malware program was used in this campaign.  However, many existing Zeus variations (Citadel, SpyEye, IcelX, etc.) – have that necessary capability.  We believe the malware used in this campaign could be a Zeus flavor using sophisticated Web injects on the victims.”

Users enjoying online banking, whether on a PC or mobile device, need to be aware of potential security risks – and because of strong security required by banks to deploy – it’s significantly easier for hackers to compromise users before they even get to the banking site.

Thank you to Kaspersky Lab for providing us with this information

Image courtesy of dl-online