A cyber siege on Lebanese banks

When news broke out in August that a cyber virus dubbed ‘Gauss’ attacked bank accounts in the Middle East, with the vast majority being Lebanese accounts, senior management at local banks must have said to themselves “just when you thought it couldn’t get worse.” With the banking sector’s challenges already piling up — from a war in neighboring Syria to dwindling domestic economic growth to increased international scrutiny — banks now had to add a cyber war to their lingering list of concerns.  Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based information technology (IT) security vendor, discovered the Gauss virus and claimed it began operating in September 2011, attacking around 2,500 machines in the Middle East, of which 1,600 were in Lebanon. According to Kaspersky, Gauss is capable of stealing browser history, cookies, passwords and system configurations as well as accessing credentials for various online banking systems and payment methods, targeting the clients’ bank