Massive Cyber-Heist Hits 100 Banks

The numbers are spectacular. More than 100 banks in 30 countries were hit, and the take was hundreds of millions, possibly approaching a billion dollars, according to Kapersky Lab, a Russia-based cybersecurity firm that has written a report on what transpired. It was a meticulous, slow-moving, multi-step theft, beginning with infected emails sent to bank employees and culminating in multiple stings that took more than one form, ranging from money transfers into bogus accounts to the hijacking of ATM software, so that certain machines were made to regurgitate money remotely, just as participants in the scheme happened by and could pocket the cash.