Cybercriminals used cloned debit cards to steal Rs 94.4 crore from a Pune-based cooperative bank after breaching its servers, in the second such attack on an Indian bank this year.
Cosmos Cooperative Bank was caught unawares during the theft between August 11 and August 13 as the hackers took control of its system and self-approved nearly 15,000 false transactions.
A total of 450 cloned international Visa and several RuPay debit cards were used in 28 countries, including 2,800 transactions in India. It is suspected that the hackers have links with Hong Kong.
There is no need for panic, the bank told its customers. "We want to assure our customers that their money is absolutely safe. Due to firewall protection, the hackers could not access any of the accounts," said Suhas Gokhale, managing director.
The money that was transferred is mostly from the inter-bank settlement accounts, said Gokhale. "Our internal audit is on to find out the final figure of the amount." The fraud came to light on Monday when the payment gateways approached the bank seeking the money that it had cleared based on 'approvals'.
The Pune police are probing the malware attack. A case has been registered under the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code.
An officer from Chaturshrungi police station said the hackers on August 11 carried out 12,000 bogus transactions of Rs 78 crore abroad. The same day, 2,849 transactions were done in India to steal Rs 2.5 crore.
"On August 13, the hackers transferred Rs 13.92 crore to an account of a Hong Kong-based bank through SWIFT [a global network that enables banks worldwide to send and receive information about money deals]," the officer said.
According to Cosmos Bank officials, four officers of RBI are scrutinsing the entire system of the bank along with the other cyber experts.
Earlier this year, City Union Bank reported an online theft of $2 million through three unauthorised transactions via SWIFT.
In its efforts to check cyber frauds, the RBI had in June 2016 issued guidelines for banks on setting up their own cybersecurity framework. Three months later, it again urged banks to follow the norms to tackle internet fraud. The regulator also formed an inter-disciplinary committee on cybersecurity in February 2017.
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There is no need for panic, the bank told its customers. "We want to assure our customers that their money is absolutely safe. Due to firewall protection, the hackers could not access any of the accounts," said Suhas Gokhale, managing director.
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