Mexico City– Mexican cybersecurity firm Silikn has detected a possible sale of data belonging to various banking institutions operating in the country through clandestine Internet forums and Telegram groups.
Victor Ruiz, founder of the company and a cybersecurity specialist, said that more than 2.2 million user records from Banorte, 1.1 million from Santander, 592 thousand from BBVA and 491 thousand from Citibanamex, among other databases, were compromised. “We detected this information both in leak forums and in Telegram channels. The monitoring includes leak forums on the Internet, Deep Web, Dark Web and now the social network channels,” he said in an interview on Thursday night. However, in order to have access to the databases, a corresponding payment must be made to the cybercriminals.
‘There is no evidence’
In response to a request from Grupo Reforma, the Mexican Banking Association (ABM) simply responded: “there is no evidence that they are bank databases.” Ruiz noted that although the attackers left certain screenshots, the alleged cybercriminals may not have the data anyway. “These databases are possibly related to the alleged leak of information obtained by cybercriminals with the operation called ‘manipulated alligator,’” Ruiz warned. Although this leak has not been confirmed, there is a possibility that the data is a collection of previously leaked databases.
Precautions are recommended
The specialist recommended that users take precautions in case this incident is confirmed. In the case of Telegram, there is no charge to check the channels, unlike clandestine forums, but there is a charge to access the information. “Cybercriminals are using Telegram as a sales channel as well,” he said. “Rather than detecting the groups, they detected the companies. We do continuous monitoring and suddenly we find the brands of recognized companies that appear on different channels,” explained the founder of Silikn.
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