Hackers have targeted Chile’s largest bank, Banco de Chile, in a multi-faceted cyber attack on systems linked to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication’s (SWIFT) inter-bank transfer network.
The attack first started with a ‘ransomware’ attack based on a variant of the KillDisk disk-wiper malware back on May 24. The attack resulted in thousands of the bank’s workstations being disabled and caused disruptions for days.
The disk-wiper incident appears to be a distraction from the hacker’s main motive – to target SWIFT systems and steal money.
Banco de Chile’s CEO, Eduardo Ebensperger Orrego, recently stated that attackers had stolen US $10M from the bank and disabled 9,000 systems, The Register reports.
Trend Micro published more details on master boot record (MBR)-wiping malware and new variant KillDisk targeting Latin American financial institutions. The activity was observed going back to last May.
“The attack was used only as a distraction — the end goal was to access the systems connected to the bank’s local SWIFT network,” Trend Micro said in blog post last week.