NEW YORK — Cybersecurity researchers
say North Korea might be connected to a recent attack that resulted in
the theft of over $100 million from the Bangladeshi central bank and the
attempted thefts of millions more from other Asian banks.
If
the finding holds up, the attacks would amount to a new strategy for
the rogue nation, whose state-sponsored efforts have been have long been
motivated by politics, not money.
Security researchers
at Symantec say that the malware used in February to steal $101 million
from the Bangladeshi bank's account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York is similar to that used in the past by a group known as "Lazarus."
That
group has been linked to a string of hackings largely focused on U.S.
and South Korean targets dating back to 2009. That includes the
crippling 2014 hack of Sony Pictures, which the FBI has blamed on the
North Korean government . North Korea denied the allegation.
According
to the Symantec research, the malware's rare code also showed up in the
October 2015 hack of a bank in the Philippines and another of a
Vietnamese bank about two months later, tying both to the breach of the
Bangladesh bank.
Earlier
this month, the global money-transfer coordinator Swift reported a new
cyberattack against another unnamed bank. Swift said the attack was part
of a coordinated campaign following the theft from the Bangladesh bank.
While
Swift didn't say if any money had been stolen, it did say that the
attack allowed for the transfer of money and the tampering of bank
documents.
It
also emphasized that its own system, which connects more than 11,000
banking and securities organizations as well as other clients moving
billions each year, had not been compromised by the malware.
Source: The New York Times
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