(Bloomberg) – Investigators have linked malware used by Russian and eastern European cyber gangs to a string of bank heists that culminated in the record-breaking theft of $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank, according to people familiar with the probe.
The tools used in some of the attacks on as many as 12 banks, mostly in Southeast Asia, match those deployed by the so-called Dridex crime gangs, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is confidential. They operate in Russia and former parts of the Soviet Union including Moldova and Kazakhstan.
North Korean hackers have been implicated in the Bangladesh attack because the malicious software, or malware, used suggested a link between that attack and the breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.'s network in 2014, which U.S. officials blame on that nation. While the presence of code used in previous attacks may indicate the involvement of Dridex or North Korea, it could also mean that the malware is being sold to other parties on the black market, one of the people said.
|Email infiltration
Finding malware bearing signs of Russian gangs makes attributing the source of the attacks even more complicated for authorities, who now have evidence pointing to the potential involvement of both nation states with a history of hacking and criminal organizations that make their living stealing from businesses.
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