Hackers Attack Online Stores Stealing Credit Card Data, Experts Allege North Korea

According to the recent findings, there has been an incident of web skimming attacks on the European and American online store websites. The hackers responsible for the attacks are likely to be state-sponsored from North Korea. Research conducted by cybersecurity experts at Sansec reveals that the web skimming attacks that broke into the online retail stores started in May 2019. APT Lazarus and Hidden Cobra hacking groups were responsible for the attacks, planting payment skimmers to breach the security.

According to the new research, the hackers have now increased their activities. They have now set a larger target area and attack online stores using a skimming script, which steals the customer’s banking credentials during the checkout stage. The researchers from Sansec claim that the attacks were carried out by Hidden Cobra because a similar hacking pattern was used in their previous attacks.

What is Magecart Attack? 
It is a web skimming attack in which hackers can steal banking credentials from the user and credit card details. However, in this incident, Hidden Cobra, after gaining access, launched a large scale attack on big online retail stores. Once hackers have unauthorized access, they deploy fake scripts on the websites’ checkout pages. The skimmer then stores all the credentials that the user types during the checkout stage and sends it to the main Hidden Cobra servers. According to Sances data, in millions of online stores, up to 100 stores’ websites are compromised on an average every day.

“To monetize the skimming operations, HIDDEN COBRA developed a global exfiltration network. This network utilizes legitimate sites that were hijacked and repurposed to serve as disguises for criminal activity. The system is also used to funnel the stolen assets so that they can be sold on dark web markets. Sansec has identified a number of these exfiltration nodes, including a modeling agency8 from Milan, a vintage music store9 from Tehran, and a family-run book store10 from New Jersey,” says the Sansec report. Experts have now linked various attacks since 2019 to Hidden Cobra, say that the threat actors are very likely to be state-sponsored.