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"Hunt or be hunted." Ilya Sachkov thus summarizes the current philosophy in the fight against cybercriminals . He is the founder of IB-Group, the computer security conglomerate responsible for the report entitled 'Criminal trends in high technology 2019-2020'.

Ilya is 33 years old, elegant, tailored suits and scenic mastery. This Russian computer scientist works with Europol and Interpol : 60 criminals arrested, a thousand successful investigations, 300 million recovered. But much remains to be done.

"If 2017 was the year of the WannaCry epidemic, 2019 has become the year of undercover military operations in cyberspace, " says partner Dmitry Volkov hoarsely. There is a crowded auditorium in a skyscraper in Singapore listening to them in absolute silence. Listen carefully to the cybercrime director of Interpol.

In their research, they talk about 38 groups of hackers sponsored by states, of which seven are new . The 'golden ball' is confirmed to Lazarus, the North Korean group that already goes beyond bank robberies: more than 700 million euros sheared in the last five years. "In 2019, Lazarus attacked a nuclear organization in India, which probably led to the closure of the second unit of the plant. The atypical election of the victim indicates that military departments of rival countries would have been interested in these attacks," according to IB-Group

NEW ERA IN THE CIBERGUERRA

It also ensures that we have entered a new phase in cyberwar ... "In May 2019, Hamas hackers attempted to carry out a cyber attack against Israel ... To counter them, this country launched an air strike against a building in the Gaza Strip, where it was believed that hackers would be located, "says the report as one of the momentous episodes in the last 12 months. That is, an attack on the Net responded with real fire. And vice versa.

In June of this year, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard made selective attacks . One of them shot down an American drone. Trump's response was "to retaliate, days later, by launching a computer offensive against Iranian missile control systems."

It also includes the controversial statement of a Maduro minister when he said that the blackout suffered by 22 of the 23 states of Venezuela had been the result of "a cyberattack against the automated control system" of the electrical system. Although even Forbes has hinted at this possibility, there is not enough evidence to confirm it.

THE NEW HACKERS: COLOMBIAN, KENIATS ...

Others who continue to send in cybercrimens are the 'Big Three of Russia': Cobalt, MoneyTaker and Silence. Among the new actors on the global stage, two peculiar groups stand out: the self-styled Kenyans SilentCards . Operating only in Africa - with malware rented and barely modified - they would have stolen 150 million from lenders in the region, as Radio France International has estimated. And sheared 3.5 million to a single bank.

The expansion of a group of Spanish-speaking hackers, the Colombians of APT-C-36, has also drawn attention. "Also known as Blind Eagle was released at the end of 2018. Its objective is to steal secrets from the main companies and government agencies ; its main vector of infection is malicious emails."

Malware called Trojan horses or Trojans - due to their nature of being camouflaged until the moment of the attack - remains the biggest threat to customers of banking entities . They appropriate the identity of users and their passwords to empty their accounts.

When it seemed that this trend was going down on computers, again "has intensified. The list of objectives has not changed. And they mainly focus on 18 countries : Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, the United States, Ukraine, France, Switzerland and Japan. "

They make the list of Trojans used for mass attacks in Spain. These are: BackSwap, Qbot, Trickbot, Gootkit, Dridex and Loki PWS. "All of these are easily recognizable, except BackSwap , which is relatively new. Over the past year, this Trojan began attacking bank customers, first Polish, then Spanish ." This Trojan is perhaps the biggest cyber threat to the Spanish financial system. Your modus operandi: detects access to a bank, copies the information that is being typed and forwards it to the creator of the malware.

Android Trojans have grown even more exponentially, that is, those that affect smartphones that use this operating system. Most create fake windows on our mobiles that resemble that of our banks. Or, when we access our banks, they send the information we place in the windows to the programmers. And, when it resends a text message with the confirmation needed to perform the operation, the hacker also has access to this information . Those who are acting in Spain are divided into two classes. Those who call the 'old', easily controllable, such as Red Alert, Anubis and Loki v2. And the 'new': CometBot, Cerberus and Exobot Compact.

'MALWARE' FOR RENT

The price of renting these mobile Trojans is also revealed. Yes, there is a black market for rent of viruses and worms that are used to attack bank accounts. The newest Cerberus, which was made public in 2019, its programmer rents it for 1,800 euros per month and, of course, has a particular restriction. It cannot be used in any country that was part of the former Soviet Union. This same requirement applies to Exobot Compact that leases for 1,300 euros.

"CometBot appeared in piracy forums in February 2019, when a user with the nickname SickHavana made a post about renting new malware ... It works on the latest versions of Android. The offer only included web fakes prepared for German banks and a Spanish bank , with the possibility of attacking banks in other regions, "describe the IB-Group. Renting it costs only 650 euros.

Ilya Sachkov walks through Singapore, the safest country in the world, where he has moved to his organization to be closer to the Interpol Cybercrime headquarters. He points out that " if cybercrimens have no borders, neither should cybersecurity ." It does an exercise of 'cyber sleight of hand' to finish. Call a collaborator from your mobile. With a computer program, which clones phone numbers, you can get your office number on the screen. How could your child's number, or your wife's number appear ... Ideal for computer extortion. "This is very basic. It is not to generate paranoia, it is to know the world we live in."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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