Vladimir Levin Hacks Citibank

What happened:

• A Russian software engineer, Vladimir Levin, broke into a Citibank computer system in New York with several accomplices and stole more than $10 million by wiring it to accounts around the world.

Why they did what they did, was it purposely malicious or was it an accident?

• Levin led a Russian hacking group that publicly announced international bank robbery over a network. While not confirmed, it is believed the hacks were largely driven by money.

How did he do it?

• Vladimir was allegedly using his office computer at AO Saturn, a computer firm in St. Petersburg,Russia, to break into Citibank computers and then obtained a list of customer codes and passwords. In July 1994 customers complained of $400,000 mysteriously “disappearing” from two Citibank accounts
• Hid in the bathroom of Citibank. The server room was located next to the bathroom. Servers were easily accessible.

Citibank Floor Plans

How could it have been prevented?

• Citibank had weak cybersecurity and at that time, it was unprotected because of certain examinations. Levin had easy access to the bank accounts, with assumed help from other Russian hackers.
• Bank staff did not notice hacker group were playing with systems’ tools (e.g. were installing and running games).
• The bank should protect their system by encrypting account passwords and have their computer more secured by running antivirus software that can prevent future hacking attempts.

Vladimir Levin