Hackers Allegedly Steal $50K from Steuben Arc

Last week, the FBI was called to investigate the alleged theft of about $50,000 from Steuben ARC. Hackers have been accused of accessing Steuben Arc's financial information via a personal email of an employee who handles their financial information.

Bath, NY - Last week, the F.B.I. was called in to investigate the alleged theft of nearly $200,000 from the bank account of Steuben Arc. The theft was initially reported on September 23, 2009 after the technology staff and fraud investigators found that the huge sum of money had been illegally transferred from Arc's bank account at Five Star Bank. Steuben County Chief Deputy Noel Terwilliger told the Corning Leader that the all but about $50,000 has been recovered of the initial $200,000. Arc Executive Director Bernie Burns said that Arc's insurance will cover the remainder that's been lost. This theft in Bath is believed to be part of an online cyber crime wave has been plaguing U.S. businesses over the last few months. It's thought that these attacks are coming out of Eastern Europe, and that the targets are mostly non-profit organizations and schools which cater to disabled and uninsured individuals that have been awarded large sums of money. Steuben Arc’s Director of Information Technology Bob Haley explained to the Washington Post's 'Security Fix' that the hackers used malware disguised as a shipping invoice that was sent to an employee that handles the financial information at Arc. "It went through this lady's computer, there was a file called 'dhlinvoice.zip' that she mentioned having opened while checking her Web mail at work," Haley said. "She said there wasn't anything she recognized in [that invoice], but there was a Trojan horse (Clampi) in it." Clampi is said to be one of the most sophisticated pieces of malware out there in the cyber world. The Trojan is so complex that researchers are still trying to decode it. What may have been the saving grace for Arc is that it is a smaller business that does its banking with a smaller area bank. Had it been a larger corporation or a larger banking institution, it may have been weeks before the theft was discovered. Burns went on to say that they have revamped their computer systems. They have installed a non-Microsoft station for banking purposes and have limited Internet access within the business. As well, there are no plans to discipline the employee.