Over $250K stolen in GALA Hispanic Theatre hack recovered

Washington, D.C.-based theater GALA Hispanic Theatre has successfully recovered $255,000 stolen from its bank account following a cyberattack, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Such a hack of GALA Hispanic Theatre's CitiBank account was discovered after its certified accountant tried to perform a wire transfer to a set designer through her secure system only for the screen to display a lockout message stating that someone else had been using the account, said GALA Hispanic Theatre Executive Director Rebecca Medrano. Further investigation revealed that the payment was transferred to a Bank of America account for a fraudulent company dubbed "Infinity Source LLC" without the theater being notified of a successful transaction. No further details regarding the means of compromise were provided but the intrusion was suspected to have stemmed from a business email compromise attack. BEC attacks, which have resulted in $43 billion in losses between 2016 and 2022, were reported to have significantly increased in prevalence over the past year.