According to the Operation High Roller report, jointly released by Guardian Analytics, a US behavioural analytics fraud prevention software developer and security technology developer McAfee, criminals have attempted to transfer between EUR 60 million (USD 75.1 million) and EUR 2 billion (USD 2.5 billion) to mule business accounts belonging to the organized crime syndicate from at least 60 banks so far.
The same survey points out that building on established Zeus and SpyEye tactics, the fraud scheme is able to bypass physical chip-and-pin authentication by using automated mule account databases to conduct server-based fraudulent transactions, with the highest attempted transaction reaching EUR 100,000 (USD 130,000). Results indicate that attacks have been sighted in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and have expanded to Latin America and the US.
The same study shows high concentrations of malicious servers in Eastern Europe, and strategic placement in other countries such as China, Canada, Germany and Italy.
According to Michael Sentonas, Asia-Pacific vice president and CTO of McAfee, number of popular banks and credit unions across Asia-Pacific were also targeted as part of this operation. Australia, for instance, was a target because the security vendor found victim logs linking to one popular bank and other credit unions in the country, which indicate there were attempts at making fraudulent transactions.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now