---
title: "Hackers Are Cracking Online Banking Sites to Steal Your Cash"
description: "Financial aggregation services are giving hackers everything they need to access and empty wealthy targets' bank accounts."
date: "2019-08-06"
modified: "2019-08-06"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/hackers-cracking-online-banking-systems-steal"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "banking"
  - "cybersecurity"
  - "hacking"
  - "the digest"
---

# Hackers Are Cracking Online Banking Sites to Steal Your Cash

![Financial aggregation services are giving hackers everything they need to access and empty wealthy targets' bank accounts.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/hackers-cracking-online-banking-systems-steal.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Images via Pixabay\</em\>*

## I'm In

With a couple of relatively unsophisticated tricks, savvy hackers can breach online banking sites and drain wealthy people's accounts.

Banks that offer online services are [under assault](<https://futurism.com/banks-sophisticated-hackers>) from hackers who are "constantly probing" for weak or common passwords, [according to](<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/08/the-risk-of-weak-online-banking-passwords/>) influential cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs. According to Krebs, hackers can easily find wealthy targets through backdoors already built into banks' cybersecurity — which is bad news for all of our wallets.

## Password123

Even banks that require two-factor authentication — that's when you have to enter a code sent to your phone or email to log in — give access to companies that aggregate financial information, like Mint or Yodlee.

"Because we have become something of a known quantity with the banks, we’ve set up turning off \[multi-factor authentication\] with many of them," Brian Costello, VP of data strategy at the financial aggregator Yodlee, told Krebs.

## Lucrative Targets

With access to the weak passwords they brute-forced, hackers can use financial aggregators to see who would make for a more lucrative target — and use recent transactions or partial account numbers to launch spear-phishing attacks.

From there, draining a bank account is as easy as linking it to the hacker's own PayPal. In short, take a minute to use [strong passwords and a password manager](<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59yv5x/how-password-managers-work-and-why-you-should-use-one>).

**READ MORE:** [The Risk of Weak Online Banking Passwords](<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/08/the-risk-of-weak-online-banking-passwords/>) \[*Krebs on Security*\]

**More on bank cybersecurity:** *[Banks Are Under Siege by Sophisticated Hackers](<https://futurism.com/banks-sophisticated-hackers>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)