{"id":50274,"date":"2017-11-02T08:19:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T08:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=50274"},"modified":"2017-11-02T08:19:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T08:19:34","slug":"banks-preparing-defences-against-intense-cyber-attacks-from-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/banks-preparing-defences-against-intense-cyber-attacks-from-north-korea.html","title":{"rendered":"Banks preparing defences against INTENSE cyber attacks from North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Banks preparing defences against INTENSE cyber attacks from North Korea<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">North Korea has been hacking financial networks for years but hacking could intensify as Pyongyang weighs the threat of US military action over its nuclear programme.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been building after a series of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea and fiery verbal exchanges between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">According to chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, Dmitri Alperovitch, North Korean hackers have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from banks during the past three years, including a heist in 2016 at Bangladesh Bank.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Mr Alperovitch told the Reuters Cyber Security Summit that banks are concerned Pyongyang\u2019s hackers may become more destructive by using the same type of \u201cwiper\u201d viruses they deployed across South Korea and at Sony Corp\u2019s Hollywood studio.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">He said: \u201cThe difference between theft and destruction is often a few keystrokes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">According to Mr Alperovitch, North Korean hackers could leverage knowledge about financial networks gathered during cyber heists to disrupt bank operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">He said his firm has conducted \u201cwar game\u201d exercises for several banks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Security teams at major US banks have shared information on the North Korean cyber threat in recent months, said a second cybersecurity expert familiar with those talks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The source said \u201cWe know they attacked South Korean banks\u201d adding that fears have grown that banks in the United States will be targeted next.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Former US assistant attorney general John Carlin said other firms including defence contractors, retailers and social media companies are also concerned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">He said: \u201cThey are thinking \u2018Are we going to see an escalation in attacks from North Korea?&#8217;\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Cyber expert with Washington\u2019s Centre for Strategic and International Studies Jim Lewis said it is unlikely that North Korea would launch destructive attacks on American banks because of concerns about US retaliation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Representatives of the top American banking regulators, the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, have declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Both have ramped up cybersecurity oversight in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">It comes as it was reported earlier this month that hackers working for the North Korean government targeted American power companies in South Korea with spear phishing emails, according to cybersecurity experts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">Secret intelligence documents and photos collected by the US military were among what was stolen from South Korea\u2019s classified information by Pyongyang hackers in September 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The hackers asked their victims to take part in a fundraiser in an email, according to a report by the internet security firm FireEye that was obtained by NBC News.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The targets who downloaded the attached invitation would then invite malware onto their computer network, according to the report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">FireEye thinks that the attacks are a result of the soaring tensions between Pyongyang and Washington following the hermit nation\u2019s ballistic missile tests and nuclear programmes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">A statement from FireEye said: \u201cNorth Korea linked hackers are among the most prolific nation-state threats, targeting not only the US and South Korea but the global financial system and nations worldwide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;color: #000000;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\">The North Korean government has repeatedly denied accusations by security researchers and the US government that it has carried out<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/news\/world\/873922\/World-War-3-North-Korea-latest-news-cyber-attack-South-Korea-banks-Kim-Jong-un<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/banks-preparing-defences-against-intense-cyber-attacks-from-north-korea.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Banks preparing defences against INTENSE cyber attacks from North Korea North Korea has been hacking financial networks for years but hacking could intensify as Pyongyang weighs the threat of US military action over its nuclear programme. Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been building after a series of nuclear and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[91373,91374,7297,3284,6208,348,62011],"class_list":["post-50274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-banks-preparing-defences-against-intense-cyber-attacks-from-north-korea","tag-cyber-attack","tag-latest","tag-news","tag-north-korea","tag-south-korea","tag-world-war-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}