Researchers from an American security company have
unearthed a substantial malware-based fraud ring.
The operation has infiltrated one of Brazil's most
popular payment methods, Boleto, for two years.
An estimated 495,753 Boleto transactions have been
compromised, which means the hackers could have stolen up to $3.75bn (£2.18bn).
Researchers say it is not known whether the
fraudsters were successful in collecting on all of the transactions.
Boleto Bancario allows an individual to pay an exact
amount to a merchant and can be used for almost every kind of transaction, from
the weekly shop to phone bills.
Boletos can be used and generated both online for
electric transfers and offline with printed paper.
The attack has been described by US-based security
company RSA,
a division of data storage corporation EMC,
as "a major fraud operation and a serious cybercrime threat to banks,
merchants and banking customers in Brazil".
It is not clear how much has been stolen or whether
all the funds were successfully redirected to fraudster-controlled bank
accounts.
However, this will have been the largest electronic
theft in history if even half of the valued worth turns out to be in the hands
of criminals, according to the New
York Times.
The number of infected PCs totals 192,227 - an
additional 83,506 email user credentials have also been stolen.
Known colloquially as a man-in-the-browser threat,
the malware silently injects itself into users' web browsers after hackers have
initially tricked individuals into clicking malicious links in seemingly
ordinary looking emails. This is similar in principle to phishing scams.
Once the malware is in the browser, fraudsters can
begin to intercept and alter Boleto details. This activity is invisible to the
user.
"Because of its stealth capabilities, end-users
also have little chance of detecting Boleto fraud on their own," said RSA
researchers.
Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's
Internet Explorer are all vulnerable to the attack.
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