NEW ORLEANS -- According to the FBI, organized "cyber-gangs" from eastern Europe are raiding the bank accounts of small-to-medium size businesses using an "Automated Clearing House" scam.
The hackers use computer viruses to steal their victims' online banking credentials.
"Those log-in credentials are then used to transfer money immediately out of the account or those credentials are used create a new log-in account which is then used to transfer money out of the account," said FBI Special Agent Kristy Green.
Green said Louisiana companies have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the scam. Nationally, the hackers have hit businesses to the tune of about $100 million in attempted losses.
It's called "spear-phishing" because the hacker picks out a specific target inside the company.
"What they do is they learn as much as they can about the person who works there and they send them an e-mail that person would be likely to open," said Green. "It's not your typical spam e-mail. Within that e-mail is either a malware program, an attachment, so when they click on to the e-mail, they read it, they download the attachment which they think is a legitimate attachment or there's a link to a website. When they go to a website, then malware, a bad program, is downloaded to their computer."
According to the FBI, the cyber-scammers are so sophisticated that they've devised a way to use thousands of infected computers to bombard a bank with e-mail and inquiries. They use the confusion as cover while they drain the money from an account at the bank.
"They will bombard it with traffic so that it can't handle the traffic, then it shuts down," said Green. "While the bank or third party are trying to work on that, trying to fix that problem, then they're able to transfer out some of the money, whereas otherwise it would be stopped."
Gulf Coast Bank President Guy Williams said defending against these types of attacks is a cat-and-mouse game against formidable foes.
"All those people who used to work for the KGB are now hackers," said Williams. "Now their target is financial institutions and companies anywhere in the western world. Their objective is simply to steal money."
Williams says the hackers have already tried to attack his bank.
"We've seen the cyber attacks, but our security has worked and we've been able to fend them off, but it's something that goes on 24 hours a day, around the world," said Williams.
Whitney Bank IT Security Manager Josh Nicholson said hackers know the weak link in online banking is customer's PCs.
"I think it's pretty insidious for the simple fact that it's bypassing all the anti-virus software that's out there right now," said Nicholson. "It's very advanced in nature. It's very difficult to detect."
The bankers say customers should take some simple precautions.
"If you're going to do that online banking channel, it best to do that on a different PC than you would use for normal internet traffic," said Nicholson.
"Look at you account everyday," said Williams. "We have online systems. If you watch your account you can see these transactions occurring. You have up to 48 hours to send the transactions back, you just need to pay attention."
Agent Green also has some good advise.
"What people can do is they can make sure that whatever software they are using on their computers is patched with the latest patches that come out with the developer," said Green. "The other things that they can do is make sure that not only do they have a virus program, but that the definitions on that program are updated. They can also make sure that they have firewalls on their network and they are properly installed and working."
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