Alleged leader of Carbanak cyber crime gang arrested in Spain

Without the leader the cyber gang behind the Carbanak and Cobalt attacks may have lost the brains of their operation

The suspected leader of the Carbanak cyber crime gang, which is believed to have stolen as much as €1 billion from banks and account holders worldwide, has been arrested in Spain.

The suspect was arrested by Spanish police in the port city of Alicante

"The criminal operation has struck banks in more than 40 countries and has resulted in cumulative losses of over €1bn for the financial industry," claimed Europol, which announced his arrest yesterday.

It continued: "The magnitude of the losses is significant: the Cobalt malware alone allowed criminals to steal up to €10m per heist."

Europol worked with the Spanish National Police, the FBI, and the Romanian, Belarussian and Taiwanese authorities, as well as private cyber security firms, to track down the alleged ring-leader.

The gang first surfaced in a series of heists facilitated by the Anunak malware, which was later refined with Carbanak in attacks that enabled the gang behind it to steal around $300 million.

More recently, the gang used malware given the name of Cobalt in attacks that targeted banks in at least 14 countries and saw ATMs spit out cash.

The gang worked primarily through the use of phishing emails. The hackers would encourage unsuspecting bank workers to download malicious attachments, enabling their PCs to be compromised. From there the hackers could propogate their malware and use their access to transfer money.

However, with the ring-leader arrested the gang is almost certainly out of business: the as-yet-unnamed leader was responsible for developing the malware, so without him, the cyber criminal group may have lost the brains of the operation.

"This global operation is a significant success for international police cooperation against a top level cyber-criminal organisation.

"The arrest of the key figure in this crime group illustrates that cybercriminals can no longer hide behind perceived international anonymity," said Steven Wilson, head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre.

He continued: "This is another example where the close cooperation between law enforcement agencies on a worldwide scale and trusted private sector partners is having a major impact on top level cyber criminality."

We'll have to wait and see if the cyber criminal group is on its last legs, but it would appear that if you're going to try and pilfer cash from a bank by using malware, a whole roster of law enforcement will be coming after you.