South African bank readies defenses for online attacks

Computing South Africa - JOHANNESBURG -- At a security briefing held last week, Standard Bank of South Africa outlined the steps it intends to take toward ensuring safer Internet banking, and highlighted what it believes will be threats facing the online community going forward.
Standard Bank technology engineering director Herman Singh says that malicious hacking has become a serious threat. "Virus creation has increased by 1,300% over the last months (from 445 in June 2002 to 7,360 in December 2004, according to Symantec) with viruses frequently being used as vehicles for attacks, as opposed to being an end in themselves," he notes.
He also says that spyware attacks have increased by 50% in 18 months, and, more alarmingly, Symantec's figures show that phishing attacks increased in number by 290% between August and December 2004.
The criminal syndicates behind phishing attacks have also grown increasingly more sophisticated. A May 15 attack saw the syndicate recruit runners in South Africa (via e-mail sent from South Korea) under the auspices of a genuine business opportunity, whose accounts would be used to launder money gained from the attack.
The spam containing the spoofed message from Standard Bank was then sent from a Brazilian IP address to South Africa and directed local users to a Russian Web site, where they were asked to fill in their details.
Using the details garnered on the Russian site, the attackers instituted fraudulent transactions from New York, and then attempted to transfer the illegally gained funds into the runner's account, for the runner to send, via wireless transfer, to Russia.
While all eyes were on the phishing attempt, the syndicate also released a Trojan horse that set about harvesting account information and sending it on to the Russian site.
Fortunately, security systems have become equally more sophisticated, and Singh says that no customers lost any money in the attack. Working with specialist security firm, Cyota, the bank was able to shut down eight domains being used by the syndicate, effectively neutralizing the attack.
It was also able to freeze the runner's account the minute the first deposit was made, block the relevant ports to prevent any more people from accessing the sites (through UUNet, IS and Telkom -- SA's first-tier ISPs), and contact the Scorpions (anticorruption and organized crime unit) once the money-laundering attempt became obvious.
The bank managed to do all this by 3 P.M local time on May 19 (the attack was launched at midnight). The runner was taken into custody on May 20.
Threats are escalating, however, Singh says. Pharming,