Standard Bank

#StandardBank • 2016-05

🇿🇦 South Africa, 🇯🇵 Japan

Standard Bank of South Africa was tied to a 2016 ATM cash-out in Japan in which forged cards using stolen customer-card data were used to withdraw about $18–19 million from roughly 1,700 ATMs across Tokyo and 16 prefectures. UN Panel-linked evidence says Japanese authorities had arrested about 260 suspects by July 2019 and that the case remained under investigation.

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Bluenoroff

Kaspersky

Bluenoroff is Kaspersky's name for a financially motivated unit within the broader Lazarus formation. Kaspersky introduced the designation publicly in 2017 while documenting bank intrusions connected to the 2016 Bangladesh Central Bank theft and other attacks on financial institutions and SWIFT-connected systems. The group used watering holes, backdoors, compromised infrastructure, and malware tailored to banking environments, with activity spanning multiple countries. By 2022, Kaspersky described a shift from banks and SWIFT servers toward cryptocurrency businesses as the group's principal source of illicit income. Operators created convincing cryptocurrency software companies and applications, delivered backdoored updates, and used malicious documents and social engineering to abuse trust. The reporting portrays Bluenoroff as able to draw on the larger formation's malware, exploits, and infrastructure while maintaining a distinct financial objective.

Lazarus Under The Hood
First seen: 2017-04 • Last seen: 2026-07

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