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Threat actors are jumping at the opportunity to steal money and data following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) earlier this month.
The SVB was the largest in Silicon Valley, California, and the 16th-largest in the US. The crash occurred on 10 March 2023 and is the second-largest bank crash in US history, only second to collapses in the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Security researchers have found that despite the collapse occurring only days ago, cyber criminals are already establishing attack vectors to try and reap the rewards of the crash.
With the aim of stealing account data, infecting targets with malware and financial theft, hackers are likely to run business email compromise (BEC) attacks, a form of spear phishing where the attacker poses as an employee to gain access to money or credentials from staff or customers.
Security researcher and dean of research for the SANS Technology Institute Johannes Ullrich has said that a number of domains have already been set up and that staff and clients should remain cautious.
“You should expect some targeted scams if it is known that you or the company you work for banks with SVB,” he said in a post on the SANS Internet Storm Center website.
“Most of the time, this information is more or less public. Expect not just email but also SMS or phone call scams.
“Some of the legitimate offers may be indistinguishable from scams. People may offer loans or legal services to affected companies. As with natural disasters in the past, we also see law firms setting up dedicated pages to attract clients for an eventual lawsuit.”
Ullrich named a number of potential domains that have been spotted that users should be concerned of.
“Not all of these are outright scams, just try to make a more or less honest buck off the crisis. Here are some of the registrations related to the bank,” he prefaced.
While Australians are unlikely to be affected by the attack, best practice is to ignore emails from suspicious sources claiming to be from the bank or other bodies looking to help victims.
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