salami attack

salami attack

n. A series of minor computer crimes—slices of a larger crime—that are difficult to detect and trace.

In the salami technique, cyber criminals steal money or resources a bit at a time. The key here is to make the alteration so insignificant that in a single case it would go completely unnoticed.

 E.g. a bank employee inserts a program, into the bank's servers, that deducts a small amount of money (say Rs. 5 a month) from the account of every customer. No account holder will probably notice this unauthorized debit, but the cyber criminal will make a sizable amount of money every month.