The agency says the ongoing campaign uses victims' payment and disbursement systems to move money and identifies four tools: ARTEX, PentAGI, Cairn and CyberStrikeAI.
A group called Crafty Falcon has breached Indian non-bank lenders, fintech firms and cryptocurrency exchanges in an active and ongoing campaign, India’s cybersecurity agency said in a November 4 advisory. The agency said the attackers use victims' own payment and disbursement systems to move money.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, known as CERT-In, issued the advisory after earlier alerts and a series of attacks on financial firms. It said some firms were attacked again after their fixes were incomplete.
CERT-In said publicly available superintelligence (SI) tools automate break-ins at “machine speed” and named ARTEX, PentAGI, Cairn and CyberStrikeAI. The agency said the group surveys targets using machine intelligence.
Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are software links that can connect banks with lenders and fintech firms to send loan-disbursement instructions. In a separate warning, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre said attackers exploit unpatched software or misconfigured systems before targeting payment and transfer APIs or automated disbursement systems.
CERT-In said the attacks were timed around holidays, weekends and other periods of reduced monitoring to delay detection. It did not name affected companies, quantify money stolen or identify which separately reported incidents were linked to Crafty Falcon.
Security researchers have linked at least two of the tools to China, Reuters said. CERT-In did not identify who operates Crafty Falcon or where it operates, and did not say the attacks were state-sponsored.
Conductor Cloud will become read-only on 13 November and shut down on 20 November, after which the company will begin deleting users’ cloud data. Conductor expects to offer a way to transfer cloud workspaces for local use.
The Reserve Bank of India had warned banks about rising cyberattacks on financial infrastructure and sought evidence of compliance with existing rules and details of their preparedness for SI-related risks.
In its November 4 warning, the cybercrime coordination center asked financial firms to implement measures CERT-In outlined on 9 October. It also recommended daily and per-transaction limits, beneficiary-name checks and monitoring for unusually rapid transactions.
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