A padlock is displayed at the Alert Logic booth during the 2016 Black Hat cyber-security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. August 3, 2016. REUTERS/David Becker

MOSCOW (Reuters) - (This December 2 story corrects to show the 2 billion rubles is combined amount stolen from accounts in central bank and commercial banks, not from central bank alone; clarifies that the figures are total stolen in cyberattacks for the year to date)

Hackers stole more than 2 billion rubles ($31 million) from correspondent accounts at the Russian central bank and from accounts in commercial banks, the bank said on Friday, the latest example of an escalation of cyber attacks on financial institutions around the globe.

Central bank official Artyom Sychyov discussed the losses at a briefing, saying that the hackers had attempted to steal about 5 billion rubles. He said the figures were the totals recorded stolen, or the target of attempted theft, in cyber attacks over the course of 2016.

Sychyov was commenting on a central bank report released earlier in the day, that told of hackers breaking into accounts there by faking a client’s credentials. The bank provided few other details in its lengthy report.

Financial regulators around the world have recently urged banks to beef up cyber security in the wake of a string of high-profile heists on banks around the world.

Fears about attacks on banks have mounted since February when unknown cyber criminals stole $81 million in funds that Bangladesh’s central bank had on deposit at the New York Fed. Law enforcement agencies around the globe are hunting for the criminals who stole the money using fraudulent wire-transfer requests sent over the SWIFT bank messaging network.

Separately, Russia said on Friday that it had uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow chaos in the country’s banking system via a coordinated wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks going bust.

($1 = 63.8300 rubles)</s>Hackers in 2016 stole 2 billion rubles -- equivalent to $31 million -- from accounts that banks keep at Russia's central bank.

The Bank of Russia confirmed the cyberattacks and the extent of the losses to CNNMoney on Friday.

Hackers had tried to steal 5 billion rubles, but the central banking authority managed to stop them and redirect the funds, according to central bank security executive Artiom Sychev.

"We were lucky to return some of money," said a central bank spokesperson.

The hackers targeted commercial banks, but they also stole cash from their clients, the central bank reported.

The central bank did not say when the cyberheists occurred, but said they took place over 2016. They also did not say how hackers moved the funds. But so far, the attack bears some similarity to a recent string of heists that has targeted the worldwide financial system.

In January 2015, hackers got a hold of an Ecuadorian bank's codes for using SWIFT, the worldwide interbank communication network that settles transactions. They used Banco del Austro's credentials to steal money the bank kept at Wells Fargo.

In October, hackers used the same technique to slip into a bank in the Philippines.

Two months later, hackers tried to make fraudulent requests at a commercial bank in Vietnam. They were stopped.

This past February, computer hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh's central bank -- also by gaining access to SWIFT. That time, the bank robbers made five transfers out of Bangladesh Bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The hackers tried to steal $951 million, but the Fed cut them off before the completion of the theft.

Researchers at the cybersecurity firm Symantec have concluded that the global banking system has been under sustained attack from a sophisticated group -- dubbed "Lazarus" -- that has been linked to North Korea.

But it's unclear who has attacked Russian banks this time around.

Earlier Friday, the Russian government claimed it had foiled an attempt to erode public confidence in its financial system.

Russian's top law enforcement agency, the FSB, said hackers were planning to use a collection of computer servers in the Netherlands to attack Russian banks. Typically, hackers use this kind of infrastructure to launch a "denial of service" attack, which disrupts websites and business operations by flooding a target with data.

The FSB said hackers also planned to spread fake news about Russian banks, sending mass text messages and publishing stories on social media questioning their financial stability and licenses to operate.

Editors note: This story has been updated to clarify that the losses cited from cyberattacks at Russia's central bank were for 2016, not a single attack.</s>Hackers have stolen more than 2 billion roubles ($31.3 million) from banks' correspondent accounts in Russian central bank, the central bank official Artyom Sychyov told a briefing on Friday.

He added that hackers attempted to stole around 5 billion roubles.

Hackers broke into accounts at the Russian central bank earlier this year by faking a client's credentials and attempted to steal $45 million, the bank said in a report released earlier on Friday.</s>A padlock is displayed at the Alert Logic booth during the 2016 Black Hat cyber-security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. August 3, 2016. REUTERS/David Becker

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hackers stole more than 2 billion rubles ($31 million) from correspondent accounts at the Russian central bank, the bank said on Friday, the latest example of an escalation of cyber attacks on financial institutions around the globe.

Central bank official Artyom Sychyov discussed the losses at a briefing, saying that the hackers had attempted to steal about 5 billion rubles.

Sychyov was commenting on a central bank report released earlier in the day, that told about hackers breaking into accounts there by faking a client's credentials. The bank provided few other details in its lengthy report.

Financial regulators around the world have recently urged banks to beef up cyber security in the wake of a string of high-profile heists on banks around the world.

Fears about attacks on banks have mounted since February when unknown cyber criminals stole $81 million in funds that Bangladesh's central bank had on deposit at the New York Fed. Law enforcement agencies around the globe are hunting for the criminals who stole the money using fraudulent wire-transfer requests sent over the SWIFT bank messaging network.

Separately, Russia said on Friday that it had uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow chaos in the country's banking system via a coordinated wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks going bust.
The Russian Central Bank says hackers, who were attempting to steal about 5 billion rubles, did take more than 2 billion ($31 million) this year from member bank accounts.