Threat Management

Organised hacker groups pose threat to Russian banks

The Russian government plans to intensify the fight with organised hacker groups, the numbers of which have significantly increased in recent years, along with the damage caused by their activities to banks and financial institutions.

According to a recent report, prepared by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the damage from cybercrime to the Russian financial institutions has significantly increased in recent years. In contrast to previous years, when attacks were mostly conducted  by individuals, a significant part of cybercrime in Russia now involve the participation of large organised crime groups.

As Sergey Vetrov, a spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, told SCMagazineUK.com this became mainly due to a significant increase of illegal profits from cybercrime.

For the last several years cybercrime has become just as profitable for criminals as prostitution, human trafficking and the drug trade. This has attracted  well-organised criminal groups, many of which are apparently patronised by corrupt officials from the highest levels of the Russian state.  

In the meantime, Russian law enforcement agencies are planning new exposures, similar to those which took place on June of the current year and which resulted in the arrest of more than 50 members of a large hacker group, which stole around  RUS 2 billion (UK £25 million) from the accounts of numerous Russian banks and which planned new massive attacks.

According to some senior officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), investigation takes time, and acquiring a guilty verdict is often difficult considering the complexities of the Russian legal system

The situation is aggravated by the fact that members of organised crime are often disparately located in remote regions of Russia, or even in other countries.

According to the FSB, growing cybercriminal activity is not just confined to Russia, but western countries too. Further action needs to be taken to prevent the spread.

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