Hackers plunder 5 million

It`s one thing to have your personal bank account hacked, you may lose a few dollars or worse a small fortune. However you would expect corporate accounts to have added security, preventing such a devastating event. That`s clearly not the case. While we`ve seen point-of-sale systems hacked and customer data stolen, this time it was actually a company bank account that was robbed.

Irish airline Ryanair had its corporate account plundered by hackers to the tune of $5 million, or €4.6 million. The money apparently disappeared from accounts used to fund the fueling of the company`s planes, not a cheap task and perfect for not immediately ringing alarm bells.

This isn`t an entirely new scenario, as security researchers at IBM discovered malware designed with this intent. `IBM Security has identified an active campaign using a variant of Dyre malware that has successfully stolen more than $1 million from targeted enterprise organizations`, states John Kuhn of IBM.

The Ryanair breach was discovered late last week and reported in The Irish Times, who received a brief statement from company -- `Ryanair confirms that it has investigated a fraudulent electronic transfer via a Chinese bank last week`. No further word is expected because of pending legal action.

According to security blog Hot For Security, this money was transferred out through a Chinese bank, and Irish authorities are now looking into the matter. It illustrates that nobody is entirely safe online, not even the big corporate players.

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