The methods and menace of the new bank robbers

TALK TO BANKERS and some will tell you that when it comes to , they are second only to the military in terms of the strength of their defences. And yet trawl the dark web, as Intel 471, an intelligence firm, did on behalf of in May, and it is obvious that attempts to breach those walls are commonplace. One criminal was detected trying to recruit insiders within America’s three biggest banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, offering a “seven-to-eight-figure” weekly payment to authorise fraudulent wire transfers. Another was auctioning the details of 30m accounts at Bank Mellat in Iran (a country of 83m).Such activity represents the handiwork of a new breed of bank robber. Forget the hold-ups of yore. Today’s smartest hackers are likely to be backed by rogue states, such as North Korea and, to a lesser extent, Iran, or tolerated by countries such as Russia and China. They benefit from unprecedented resources and protection from law-enforcement agencies. As well as attempting to empty accounts, they also target data for insider trading.