Lebanese banks have probably realized they will never be able to improve their customer service, so they opted for producing some cools ads instead. First Jammal Trust Bank, then Bank Audi, and now Byblos Bank.
Kudos to the agency that came up with this one!
Kaspersky Labs recently discovered a new malware called “Gauss” with a module that aims to capture Lebanese bank accounts login credentials. And the targeted banks included Bank of Beirut, EBLF, Blom Bank, Byblos Bank, Fransabank, and Credit Libanais.
The article suggests the malware has been created by the US and Israeli governments and was not intended to steal money from client accounts, but rather to trace the source of funding to certain individuals (Hezbollah members I suppose).
The spyware, dubbed Gauss after a name found in one of its main files, also has a module that targets bank accounts in order to capture login credentials. The malware targets accounts at several banks in Lebanon, including the Bank of Beirut, EBLF, BlomBank, ByblosBank, FransaBank and Credit Libanais. It also targets customers of Citibank and PayPal.
The researchers don’t know if the attackers used the bank component in Gauss simply to spy on account transactions, or to steal money from targets. But given that the malware was almost certainly created by nation-state actors, its goal is likely not to steal for economic gain, but rather for counterintelligence purposes. Its aim, for instance, might be to monitor and trace the source of funding going to individuals or groups, or to sabotage political or other efforts by draining money from their accounts.
Still, that doesn’t seem like the only purpose for that malware, since the people at Kaspersky are still working to crack the larger part of its code and identify what is it responsible for.
Make sure to read the very interesting and worrying report from Wired.com here.
I know protecting your network from a nation-state-created malware is quite hard, but I hope Lebanese banks are now taking the necessary measures to protect themselves from such attacks and eventually safeguard our information.
Thank you Ibrahim Lahoud
According to an article published in Byblos Bank’s issue number 193 of “Lebanon This Week“, Facebook users in Lebanon will soon reach 1 million!
As of the end of November there was a total of 968,780 users, which means 1 out of 4 Lebanese currently has a Facebook account in Lebanon! That’s pretty good given that we have the 5th slowest Internet speed in the whole universe, another proof that nothing can stand in the way of our willpower. 😛
Figures on the usage of social networking site Facebook indicate that there are 968,780 Facebook users in Lebanon at the end of November, accounting for 0.2% of worldwide users and for 4.8% of users in the Arab world. As such, Lebanon ranks in 67th place among 213 countries and in 8th place among 18 Arab countries in the number of users of the social site. Globally, Lebanon ranks ahead of Kenya, Guatemala and Bosnia & Herzegovina and comes behind Uruguay, Albania and Costa Rica. Lebanon’s number of Facebook users is lower than the global average of 2,696,998 users and the Arab average of 1,122,076 users.
The Facebook usage penetration rate in Lebanon, or the ratio of the site’s users to the total population, is 23.4%, ranking Lebanon in 83rd place globally and in third place in the Arab world. Lebanon ranks ahead of the Martinique, Costa Rica and Hungary and behind Estonia, Bulgaria and Seychelles globally; while it comes ahead of Kuwait and behind Bahrain in the Arab world.
The article also details the user age distribution, which might be of marketers’ interest.
