Current Event on Computer Security

Cyber Attack on Austria's FACC AG

Just a few days ago, on 20th January 2016, there is a reported cyber security attack on FACC, which is an aerospace manufacturer. The attack occurred and affected its financial accounting department whereby the attackers managed to steal approximately US $54.5 million from the organization’s coffers (Cluley, 2016). The company’s clients include Boeing and Airbus and the report from the It department of the company says that there have been continuous attacks on its finance departments, but they could not notice them in good time. The hackers involved a series of penetration network activities involving information communication technologies. The hack did not take pace for the company’s intellectual; property or data, but rather on the cold hard cash. The hackers must have to carry out a private investigation on the company’s security enhancements son its systems for some time before they broke into them. Early studies reveal that the loss occurred via socially engineered fraudulent wire transfers.

Australian’s criminal investigation department is still conducting its investigations to reveal the perpetrators of the cyber crime. The forensic investigations, as well as criminal investigations, show that the hackers targeted the financial department of FACC Operations GmbH (PCworld.com, 2016). The criminal activities did not incorporate the company’s IT infrastructure, IP rights, data security or its operational business of the group. It resulted in an outflow of approximately 50 EUR mio liquid funds. The company’s management still says that they are carrying out investigations to provide the exact figure of the damage, and they assure the observers that the activities of production and engineering will continue as usual in spite of the heist.

The reason for the attack must have been the desire to steal the money and nothing political or resulting from trade rivalry. While there are cases where other companies suffered from a cyber security attack, the company’s damages figure stands out. The hackers perhaps wanted to pose an economic threat to the company although FACC claims that the figure does not have any economic threat. The aim of the hackers was majorly the acquisition of liquid funds, and that is why they specifically attacked the finance department and particularly the wire transfer of money (Aviationweek.com, 2016). Cyber criminals have been adept at making fraudulent transactions by compromising the login credentials, or emails systems and making them appear legitimate to the employees. When they turn out to be successful, they transfer large amounts of funds that are likely to cause an economic impact on the victim.

The company took a good step by informing the crime-fighting authorities in the country, and the forensic investigation kicked off almost immediately. Once there is a huge wire transfer of money, it is hard for a bank to recover the money if withdraw takes pace immediately. Last year, 2015 there was a similar attack on budget airline Ryanair whereby the hackers managed to steal almost UIS $5 million after conducting a fraudulent electronic transfer to a Chinese bank. The bank should have learned from the experience of the Ryanair banks and put appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure that the same incident did not occur. My opinion is that the bank appeared to be reluctant in ensuring that there was tight security for its systems to prevent any intrusion into their systems.

References

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in custom research paper services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for a custom research paper from top research paper writing companies.

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