Hackers steal money from companies using infected documents – Kommersant

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has revealed a new fraudulent scheme used by hackers to steal money from Russian companies. By information press service of the regulator, attackers use document templates containing viruses.

It is noted that attackers create fake websites of state departments and well-known reference systems. Virus-infected documents are subsequently published there. To raise their sites in search engine results, hackers use the SEO-poisoning method (“poisoning” of search results), the Central Bank specified.

“A user downloads a document, after which a remote access program is launched on his PC. Using it, hackers can remotely change bank details in company contracts, for example, with contractors or suppliers,” the Bank of Russia explained, emphasizing that the scheme aimed at stealing entrepreneurs’ money has already become quite widespread.

In June, the Central Bank informedthat fraudsters were able to steal more than 4.5 billion rubles from Russians in the first 3 months of 2023 using various criminal schemes, and the number of illegal operations performed by attackers amounted to more than 250 thousand rubles. At the same time, over the same period, Russian banks repelled almost 3 million hacker attacks, preventing an attempt to steal 700 billion rubles. at their clients. Representatives of the regulator note that scammers and hackers are improving their work, and they use the previously used methods of “phishing attacks” much less frequently.

Read more in the material “Kommersant FM” “Defense systems miss attack.”

Alexander Kislov