MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. An attack against the Russian banking system made by hackers last year compromised Visa and MasterCard international payment systems, representative of the Cybercrime Department of the Russian Interior Ministry Alexander Vurasko said on Thursday.

"The specificity of that [hackers’] ring was that they managed to compromise the largest international payment systems, including Visa and MasterCard. It made possible for them to attack processing center, modified transmitted information, and attack interbank exchange systems," the official said.

Fraudsters attempting to ruin the national banking system were detained shortly before the attack, Vurasko said. "Members of the ring actually prepared an operation to steal about 1.5 bln rubles ($19.8 mln) from several dozen Russian banks. They planned to do that during one day and prepared everything. They thought they just needed to ‘push a button’," Vurasko said.

Hundreds of banks were attacked by hackers. "We can not specifically mention banks but these were nearly all banks from the Top 100, if we speak about that large-scale attack," Vurasko said. No foreign banks were among them, he added.