A Credit Union Cyberattack Defense Manual

With the ever increasing risks that are associated with cyberattacks, companies across industries are realizing the importance of having a cybersecurity team.

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Cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated, and they are able to hack into the biggest financial institutions across the globe, like JP Morgan Chase and HSBC. Any small dropping of the guard can result in catastrophic theft of customer financial records, business data and syphoning of a large amount of funds.

Have you dropped your guard?

Operation High Roller Targets Corporate Bank Accounts

Two security firms say a new type of cyberattack is targeting corporate bank accounts.

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The attacks began in Europe but have spread to Latin America and the United States.

So far, hackers have attempted to steal at least $78 million in fraudulent transfers from accounts at 60 or more financial institutions.

Read the full article to learn more.

Did ONE high-tech worker bring RBS to its knees?

Was RBS brought to its knees by ONE junior IT technician?

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A junior technician in India caused the RBS computer meltdown which froze millions of British bank accounts, it was claimed.

The ‘inexperienced operative’ erased a massive swathe of information during a routine software upgrade for the Royal Bank of Scotland and its subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Bank, according to reports.

Read the full article to see if your CU IT staff is up to snuff.

Changing banks is a hassle that banks may count on

Customers frustrated by banks' controversial new fees are finding out what industry insiders have known for years: It is not so easy to disentangle your life from your bank.

The Internet banking services that have been sold to customers as conveniences, such as online bill paying, serve as powerful tethers that keep them from jumping to another institution.

Tedd Speck, 49, a market researcher in Kent, Conn., was furious about Bank of America's planned $5 monthly fee for debit card use. But he is staying put after being overwhelmed by the inconvenience of moving dozens of online bill paying arrangements to another bank.

"I'm really annoyed," he said, "but someone at Bank of America made that calculation and they made it right."

Former bankers and market researchers say that it's no accident. The steady expansion of online bill paying, they say, has emboldened Bank of America, as well as rivals such as Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and SunTrust, to turn to new fees on customer accounts as other sources of revenue dry up. The fees have caused an uproar among consumers and drawn sharp criticism from politicians, including President Barack Obama.

"The technology locks you in, and they're keenly aware of it," said Robert Smith, who was chief executive of Security Pacific when it was bought by Bank of America in 1992. "It's very hard for consumers to just ditch that."

For years, banks have openly sought to attach as many loans and services such as credit cards, mortgages and mobile phone banking as they can to a customer.

What they haven't mentioned are marketing studies such as the one commissioned by Fiserv, which develops online bill paying systems, showing that using the Internet to pay bills, do automatic deductions and send electronic checks reduced customer turnover for banks by up to 95 percent in some cases.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York have also jumped on the debit card fee as one more example of corporate greed. And activists are calling on account holders to switch to nonprofit credit unions en masse on Nov. 5, which they have named Bank Transfer Day; a Facebook page devoted to the effort has drawn more than 38,000 supporters.

 

As a result, the question of whether consumers will indeed vote with their feet is being closely watched by the banking industry, consumer advocates and legislators. The banks don't release detailed data on customer defections.

FBI report: Most bank robbers get away with it

The FBI's annual report on bank robberies shows that the feds recovered only a small portion of stolen loot and identified just 40 percent of the perpetrators in the 6,700 bank heists last year.
Of the $61.6 million in cash stolen, only about 19 percent - $8.9 million - was recovered.

Although the report does not reveal the arrest rate, it does show that just 3,342 of the 8,393 crooks known to be involved in the robberies were identified. Of those identified, 43 percent were determined to be narcotics users and 19 percent had previously been convicted of a bank-related crime.

The South saw the most robberies - 2,100 - followed by the West, with 1,857.

Banks in metropolitan areas claimed the highest number of heists - 3,388 - with small cities or towns following, with 2,189.

In all, bank-related crime in 2008 was slightly below that reported in 2007. [Read story at Scripps Howard News/by Lisa Hoffman].

Stolen bank account data was most advertised item on the internet black market in 2007

In the second half of 2007, stolen bank account details were the most frequently advertised items on the internet black market, states a report. The advertised price for bank account data varied between USD 10 and USD 1000, depending on the location and funds available in the account. According to the report, bank accounts that included higher balances were advertised for much higher prices.

Credit cards were the second most advertised by online fraudsters on underground websites. Criminals were selling 50 credit card numbers for USD 40 (EUR 0.8 each) and 500 numbers for USD 200 (EUR 0.4 each). The report says the bulk rates advertised in the second half of 2007 were lower than those advertised in the first half of 2007, when the lowest purchase price was USD 100 for a package of 100 credit card numbers.

The report shows that full identities were the third most common item advertised for sale on the black market. Identities of EU citizens were more expensive than American ones.Other report findings show a rise in the number of computers hosting phishing websites in the second half of 2007.

There are mentioned 87,963 phishing hosts during the period, up 167 percent on the first six months of 2007. Banks were most targeted by phishers, with 80 percent of brands targeted by attacks during the study period. During the last six months of 2007, 66 percent of phishing websites targeted the financial services sector, down from 72 percent registered in the first half of 2007.

Even though six of the top ten brands targeted by phishers were in the financial sector, the report mentions that the second most frequently attacked brand was a social networking website.