A joint technical alert from the DHS, the FBI, and the Treasury warning about a new ATM cash-out scheme, dubbed “FASTCash,” used by Hidden Cobra APT.
According to the report published by the US-CERT, Hidden Cobra has been using the FASTCash technique since at least 2016, the APT group targets bank infrastructure to cash out ATMs.
Government experts analyzed 10 samples of malware involved in FASTCash attacks, state-sponsored hackers used them to compromise payment “switch application servers” within the targeted banks to facilitate fraudulent transactions.
“FASTCash schemes remotely compromise payment switch application servers within banks to facilitate fraudulent transactions. The U.S. Government assesses that HIDDEN COBRA actors will continue to use FASTCash tactics to target retail payment systems vulnerable to remote exploitation.” states the report.
“According to a trusted partner’s estimation, HIDDEN COBRA actors have stolen tens of millions of dollars. In one incident in 2017, HIDDEN COBRA actors enabled cash to be simultaneously withdrawn from ATMs located in over 30 different countries. In another incident in 2018, HIDDEN COBRA actors enabled cash to be simultaneously withdrawn from ATMs in 23 different countries.”
Switch application server communicates with the core banking system to validate user’s bank account details for a requested transaction.
HIDDEN COBRA actors exploited the targeted systems by using their knowledge of International Standards Organization (ISO) 8583—the standard for financial transaction messaging—and other tactics.” continues the report.
“HIDDEN COBRA actors most likely deployed ISO 8583 libraries on the targeted switch application servers. Malicious threat actors use these libraries to help interpret financial request messages and properly construct fraudulent financial response messages.”
http://prnt.sc/nyoq3u
source/ security affairs & Bg police press conference
01-20-2025, 08:50 AM
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