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Silence

Posted: July 26, 2019

Silence is the name of a hacking group that has been active in 2016 and specializes in financially-motivated attacks against banks worldwide. Some of their biggest hits have been observed in the Bangladesh, India, and Kyrgyzstan region. According to cybersecurity experts, the group is likely to rely on a piece of malware that bears the same name as the hacking organization, and it is being used to launch cash-out attacks against ATMs operated by the targeted bank. It is believed that the group works by deploying the Silence malware to compromised bank computers, and then uses its features to access the systems responsible for ATM operations. Once this is done, all they have to do is to command the targeted ATM to dispense its banknote cassettes.
 

$3 Million Collected in Silence's Latest Cyber Heist

The last time the Silence malware made the news was in May 2019 when they managed to collect over $3,000,000 by attacking the Dutch Bangla Bank Limited found in Bangladesh. According to a report released by the cybersecurity team working on the case, the access logs of the compromised system showed that the Silence group might have had access to the bank's network since February.
 
The prolonged activity of the group is likely to mean that the Silence hacking group are experienced criminals who are not in a hurry – they want to learn how the bank's network operates, and find out every small detail about the security techniques applied, as well as any other piece of intel that can help them execute their attack flawlessly.
 
The primary infection vector used to deliver the Silence malware is likely to be spear-phishing emails. One of the first times the Silence group's activities were observed, the hackers used compromised bank employee emails to distribute corrupted documents to other bank employees.

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