The police have arrested a suspect on suspicion of extortion against Bank Yahav for Government Employees Ltd.. Following a difficult covert investigation conducted in cooperation with the National Cyber Defense Authority, the Lahav 433 national fraud squad arrested a 32 year-old suspect for extortion against Bank Yahav and other companies. The suspect allegedly threatened to reveal customers' databases unless the management of the bank and other companies paid him over NIS 1 million in bitcoin virtual currency.
The Israel Police cyber division has professional tools for dealing with cyber threats. Following a lightening investigation, with cooperation from the National Cyber Defense Bureau and police organizations around the world, including special activity on the Darknet network, the police succeeded in uncovering and arresting the suspect before he carried out his alleged plan.
The affair began with emails sent to the management of the bank and the other companies in late July 2017 by the suspect, a former employee of a company providing services to a number of banks and government ministries, including Bank Yahav.
It is suspected that the suspect succeeded in getting his hands on the bank's databases, including identifying particulars of customers, and demanded a ransom in return for not publishing and selling the particulars, which could have caused damage to the bank and the other companies.
The Lahav 433 cyber section and the police negotiation unit began investigating the affair, while conducting an email correspondence with the alleged extortionist in order to locate the suspect, who concealed his identity online, and consolidate the necessary evidence against him, while neutralizing the threat.
Special Lahav 433 teams conducted searches in a number of theaters in order to locate and neutralize the suspect, while at the same time gaining control of his computer and his Internet access and bringing the affair to a successful conclusion with the suspect's arrest, the collection of evidence against him, and the return of the sensitive information to its owners in order to avoid the potential damage.
Simultaneously with the police investigation, National Cyber Defense Authority teams, together with the Bank of Israel Banking Supervision Department, took action to make sure that no damage was caused to the organization's systems, that there was no damage to the customers' accounts, and that operational continuity was not interrupted, and in order to reinforce the bank's systems.
Bank Yahav commented, "The bank recently received an announcement from an email marketing messages services provider that its database had been broken into. This is an external company that does not have any financial information whatsoever about the bank's customers. Following this event, the bank was also contacted by an anonymous party, after which the bank gave all the necessary information to Israel Police, the National Cyber Defense Bureau, and the Bank of Israel.
"The bank is taking stringent information security measures for its databases, and discovered no break-in involving them. Further examinations were also conducted by the National Cyber Defense Authority, which also found that the bank's systems were inviolate, and that no information had leaked. We thank Israel Police for their professional actions, determination, and speed, and the National Cyber Defense Authority and the Bank of Israel for their full cooperation and involvement in the measures."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on August 20, 2017
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