Security firm identifies cyberattacks on West African financial groups

A cybersecurity firm has identified four different cyberattack campaigns against various banks and other financial institutions in West African countries, researchers said Wednesday.

Researchers for the firm Symantec said in a new report that the attacks have taken place since mid-2017. It’s unclear who is responsible for the attacks.

The impacted countries were Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

{mosads}“They could be the work of a single group or, more likely, several different groups employing similar tactics,” the report reads.

The researchers found that all of the malware used was generally available to hackers and not specialized.

“While it may not be as powerful or stealthy as custom developed tools, it does add a certain level of anonymity to attacks, making it harder to link attacks together and attribute them to any one group of attackers,” the report states.

The researchers also said that Symantec had not seen much evidence of similar attacks on the financial sector in that region, but that it “now appears that there is at least one (and quite possibly more) groups actively targeting banks in the region.”

Cyberattacks on financial institutions have been common, as cyber criminals seek to benefit financially from the attacks.