Dhaka: The government has asked all the financial institutions to take preventive measures to secure their online activities, including financial transaction.

The government instruction came as infamous cyber espionage groups Lazarus and Cobaltgoblin have successfully breached financial institutions of Bangladesh, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, China (Hong Kong) and Vietnam.

In a letter issued by Director of Data Center and Cyber Security of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Tarique M Barkatullah on October 24 requested all the financial institutions to install new generation firewall with anti-Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), Threat Intelligence Service and genuine software to secure online activities.

The United States Computer Incidence Response Team (US CISCO) report says it has been able to monitor active APT actors in the region namely by the infamous Lazarus group and Cobaltgoblin group that use Carbanak-style attacks.

‘From spying, stealing and leaking state, military and trade secrets, cyber security researchers at Kaspersky Lab discovered that cybercriminals operating in the region now aim for monetary gain as they infect banks in the Asia Pacific region,’ the report said.

Meanwhile, the ETCISCO newsletter said active ATP groups have successfully breached the financial institutions in Bangladesh, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, China (Hong Kong) and Vietnam.

Lazarus is the cyber gang believed to be behind massive breaches, it said adding Carbanak made headlines in 2014 for the $1 billion bank heists in Russia, Ukraine, Germany and China dubbed as ‘The Great Bank Robbery’.