You may have seen our post last week sharing an important link for an alert on Wire Fraud. Here is a brief summary and commentary to that article from our very own Garland Group Security Consultant - Courtney Treadaway:
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The FBI (in coordination with other organizations) recently alerted financial institutions that cyber criminals have been targeting bank employees accounts in order to initiate wire fraud. Hacks have ranged from $400k to nearly $1M. Notably, it appears that small and mid-sized banks have been the primary targets, though as the notice mentions, larger banks have also been affected.

Attempted attacks against financial institutions are nothing new. However, it is apparent from the release that the methods being used are evolving, and the use of malware to perpetrate these attacks is becoming increasingly sophisticated. For instance, in some cases criminals are using Denial of Service attacks to distract bank staff from realizing that wire transfer fraud is also occurring.

Many of the recommendations offered will sound familiar to our clients. However, some may not. For instance, above and beyond the standard malware, firewalls, anti-virus, etc... the FBI is also recommending that institutions instruct their staff to remove their USB tokens when not in-use.

For a full list of recommendations please see the official release here:

http://www.ic3.gov/media/2012/FraudAlertFinancialInstitutionEmployeeCredentialsTargeted.pdf