’Silence’ hackers hit banks in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Kyrgyzstan

A group of hackers specialised in attacking banks has breached four targets in Asia, respectively in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Kyrgyzstan, the Group-IB software company has told the ZDNet business technology news website.

Group-IB is a software company which has its headquarters in Moscow, Russia.

According to ZDNet, the only incident that is currently public is one impacting Dutch Bangla Bank Limited, a bank in Bangladesh, which lost more than $3 million during several rounds of ATM cashout attack that took place during the month of May.

In a report shared with ZDNet prior to publication, Group-IB tied the Dutch Bangla Bank incident to a group of hackers known as "Silence."

Group-IB said ‘Silence’ did hit banks in three other countries -- India, Sri Lanka, and Kyrgyzstan -- but could not disclose their names.

The group, which ZDNet previously covered in a September 2018 piece, has been active since 2016 and has historically targeted banks in Russia, former Soviet states, and Eastern Europe.

According to Rustam Mirkasymov, Head of Dynamic Analysis of Malicious Code at Group-IB, this is the first time the group has ventured into Asia.

Mirkasymov told ZDNet that Group-IB has been able to tie the Dutch Bangla Bank hack to Silence's server infrastructure.

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