Wire Attack

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 Wire Attack 

While the SWIFT network has experienced fewer attacks since its infamous 2016 bank heist, cybercriminals are readily using wire transfers in new and creative ways to launch malicious, if not lucrative and creative cyber assaults. In one high-profile example in 2018, Frank Krasovec, an owner of Domino’s Pizza franchises in China, lost $450,000 when a fraudster intercepted his email and convinced his assistant to wire money to Hong Kong on two occasions. More recently in 2020, attackers targeted a bank manager in Hong Kong with a call that impersonated the voice of a director he knew via AI voice cloning technology. The cybercriminal impersonating the executive claimed his company was making an acquisition and requested that $35 million in funds be wired electronically to another account. Usually initiated with a phishing attack or malware, wire transfer attacks provide the vehicle for transferring copious sums of money quickly.

What you need to know: Wire attacks are sophisticated schemes that send fraudulent high-value payments through international wire transfer networks. Often going beyond ordinary wire fraud, attackers can target banks in emerging markets with limited cybersecurity infrastructure or operational controls or lure high-profile targets with sophisticated and believable phishing scams. These cybercrime syndicates are after one thing: money. And lots of it.

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