Incident Of The Week: Phishing Scam At Pa. Bank Exposes 50K Accounts

In the dynamic world of cyber security, breaches are both tightly guarded and, sadly, imminent.

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This edition of “Incident of the Week” brings us to Shippensburg, Pa., in the state’s southern section. Here, the regional Orrstown Bank was hit with a cyber-attack; two employees were reportedly duped into phishing scams, thus exposing the information of nearly 55,000 customers.

According to the Chambersburg Public Opinion, the company discovered the intrusion on July 19. Those affected included customers (individuals and businesses) whose information was accessible through the targeted email accounts.

The bank’s security team reportedly terminated the outside access and reviewed bank systems. In the wake of the attack, law enforcement was notified and Orrstown consulted forensics experts to analyze the breach. These experts also reportedly determined what information was contained in the related emails.

The Public Opinion notes that no other bank systems or operations were impacted by the offensive, from core systems to the firewall. A release on the matter stated that the breach was limited to information in the email accounts.

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The bank is providing free identity and credit monitoring services for two years for those affected. The company’s communications officer confirmed that approximately 54,000 individuals were notified as a result.

Orrstown Bank President and CEO, Thomas R. Quinn, Jr., said, “We are sorry for any inconvenience this incident may have caused our customers. We have no evidence of any fraud or misuse of any information as a result of this incident. However, we are a community bank, and we are contacting every customer and business that may have been impacted out of an abundance of caution.”

He added: “We take the security of our customers’ information very seriously, and have taken additional steps to prevent future incidents of this nature.”

Outside of the credit monitoring services, Orrstown is also refocusing on training programs (anti-phishing ones, in particular) – for both employees and customers. The bank also stressed that customers should routinely check their statements.

According to the Public Opinion, Orrstown boasts about $1.6 billion in assets.

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Phishing remains one of the steadiest attack mechanisms for today’s threat actors. Despite the rising sophistication in cyberspace, hackers are relying on traditional methods to access sensitive information – in this case, in the coveted banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space.

What’s more, while phishing may be viewed as a “traditional” attack method – and a gateway to serious, potentially crippling attacks – it, too, is feeling an uptick in sophistication. That is to say that hackers know user behavior and activity, and can customize their social engineering attempts to feel personal. At which point, they only need a small opening and then the entire enterprise could be at risk.

In this case, the breach was limited to information contained on email accounts, but elsewhere in cyberspace, a similar attack could mean encrypted files, ransom demands, crypto-mining payloads, and more.

Stay tuned to the Cyber Security Hub for additional coverage of the space!

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