Sumitomo copycat crime in Stockholm

Longterm readers of Threatchaos will recall the attempted Sumitomo Bank heist in London. In that incident a gang connected to an Israeli crime syndicate infiltrated the London branch of Sumitomo Mitsui and installed hardware key stroke loggers on desktop machines within the bank. With stolen credentials they attempted to transfer a reported 220 million pounds to bank accounts around the world.

There are still many questions that remain unanswered in the Sumitomo case. I have maintained a Google alert on Sumitomo for the last two years and there has not been a whisper about any arrests, prosecutions or actions in that case. For all we know the entire gang is still on the loose.

Now we have a fresh incident to look at in Stockholm. Apparently, an employee at a bank in a suburb of Stockholm noticed that his computer was acting strangely, looked under his desk, and pulled the plug on a piece of foreign hardware. The report claims he interrupted the bank robber's attempt to transfer millions of something (kroner?). Wow, good timing. This incident occurred last August. The news is breaking now because the Swedish police are claiming to have the bank robbers in custody. Kudos to them. They should share their techniques with the police in London.

Now, let's hope that through a public prosecution we learn all of the details of this bank heist. Without that how are the 50,000 or so other banks around the world going to adequately protect themselves against becoming victims of similar attacks?