Topic: FBI probes cyber attack on Citigroup: report

[Samker]

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer hacking that targeted Citigroup Inc. and resulted in the theft of tens of million of dollars, The Wall Street Journal said, citing U.S. government officials.

Citigroup disputed the report and said customers had not lost money.

The cyber attack, believed to be linked to a Russian gang, was aimed at Citigroup’s Citibank subsidiary, the paper said, adding it was unclear whether the hackers gained access to the bank’s systems directly or through third parties.

Two other entities, including a U.S. government agency, were also attacked by hackers, the paper said, citing people familiar with the Citibank incident.

The attack on Citibank is believed to have taken place over the summer and was detected at that time, but investigators suspect it could have taken place up to a year earlier, the paper said.

"Most financial institutions of this magnitude are working extremely hard to avoid this kind of thing and be out ahead of it," said Scott Vernick, a lawyer at Fox Rothschild LLP whose practice includes electronic data securities matters.

"The problem is the criminals are working even harder," Vernick added.

Joe Petro, managing director of Citigroup’s Security and Investigative services, said in an emailed statement, "We had no breach of the system and there were no losses, no customer losses, no bank losses.

"Any allegation that the FBI is working a case at Citigroup involving tens of millions of losses is just not true."

In Washington, an FBI spokesman said he had no information about the reported investigation.

The Wall Street Journal mentioned a Citibank customer who saw more than US$1-million removed from his account and sent to banks in Latvia and Ukraine. The bank helped him recover most of the money and reimbursed him for the rest, the newspaper reported, adding that it was not clear whether the incident was part of the larger attack on Citigroup.

In a statement, the bank said it was an isolated case of fraud.

Citigroup also said that attacks are directed against companies globally, and while there had been attempts to interfere with the bank’s systems, none had been successful. But Fred Cate, director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, said, "I don’t want to sound alarmist ... but the evidence is just overwhelming today that attacks are successful in many instances, particularly socially engineered attacks."

(Canada)

[Fireberg]

The FBI is going to Citigroup's aid as fast as lightning to find the theft of tens of millions of dollars?

If they find the money???

[hazedaze]

If both institutions are deny'ing it but yet a customer acknowledges that he had money removed from his account I suspect this is indeed true in some way or form the actual extent of the loses though I would suspect that may be an exageration.

Due to the delicate financial situation the world's banks are in at the moment they obiously dont want to cause a mass panic (remember Northan Rock Uk, Not a hack attempt but prety much the same end result) where by the big inverstors pull there money out leaving the bank pretty much crippled....The fact that they surgest it may have happened earlier in the year is also probubly true and could be that is was the russian's 2nd attempt that they picked up on due to newer security probes e.t.c.

Alot of worms, malware and security by-pass methods seem to originate alot of the time at the moment from China (Ghostnet)/Russia (Pentagon attack 08) and all seem to be Linux/unix based mehods. and things are only going to get worse with company's tying to make it easier for more and more  people to use there software which may mean the program code is not as tight as it should be therfor leaving vulnerabilites in the product.....

emmm gunna be interesting to see what happens over the next year or so....