Chasing Lazarus: A Hunt for the Infamous Hackers to Prevent Large Bank Robberies

 

 

 

 

According to Kaspersky Lab records, from December 2015, malware samples relating to Lazarus group activity appeared in financial institutions, casinos software developers for investment companies and crypto-currency businesses

 

Kaspersky Lab has published the results of its more-than-year-long investigation into the activity of Lazarus – a notorious hacking group allegedly responsible for the theft of 81 million dollars from the Central Bank of Bangladesh in 2016. During the forensic analysis of artefacts left by the group in South-East Asian and European banks, Kaspersky Lab has reached a deep understanding of what malicious tools the group uses and how it operates while attacking financial institutions, casinos, software developers for investment companies and crypto-currency businesses around the world. This knowledge has helped to interrupt at least two other operations which had one goal – to steal a large amount of money from financial institutions.
In February 2016, a group of hackers (unidentified at that time) attempted to steal $851 million USD, and managed to transfer 81 million USD from the Central Bank of Bangladesh. This is considered to be one of the largest, most successful cyber heists ever. Further investigation conducted by researchers from different IT security companies including Kaspersky Lab revealed a high chance that the attacks were conducted by Lazarus – a notorious cyber espionage and sabotage group responsible for a series of regular and devastating attacks, and known for attacking manufacturing companies, media and financial institutions in at least 18 countries around the world since 2009.
Although several months of silence followed the Bangladesh attack, the Lazarus group was still active. They had been preparing for a new operation to steal money from other banks and, by the time they were ready, they already had their foot in a financial institution in South East Asia. After being interrupted by Kaspersky Lab products and the following investigation, they were set back for another few months, and later decided to change their operation by moving to Europe. But here too, their attempts were interrupted by Kaspersky Lab’s security software detections, as well as the quick incident response, forensic analysis, and reverse engineering with support from company’s top researchers.