MUMBAI – Cybercriminals hacked the systems of India’s Cosmos Bank andsiphoned off nearly 944 million rupees ($13.5 million) through simultaneouswithdrawals across 28 countries over the weekend, the bank has told police.
The co-operative bank said unidentified hackers stole customer informationthrough a malware attack on its automated teller machine (ATM) server,withdrawing 805 million rupees in 14,849 transactions in just over twohours on Aug. 11, mainly overseas.
Apart from the ATM withdrawals, the hackers transferred 139 million rupeesto a Hong Kong-based company’s account by issuing three unauthorisedtransactions over the SWIFT global payments network, the bank said in apolice complaint, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
SWIFT, whose messaging system is used to transfer trillions of dollars aday, said it did not comment on individual cases.
Cosmos Bank, based in the western city of Pune, said in a press statementthat its main banking software receives debit card payment requests via a“switching system” but it was bypassed in the attack.
“During the malware attack, a proxy switch was created and all thefraudulent payment approvals were passed by the proxy switching system,”the bank said.
The bank declined to reveal the countries, citing security risks.
Police said they were investigating the theft. – Agencies