Pune: A case of cyber fraud was registered by a bank in Pune, in which Rs. 94 crore were allegedly siphoned off. After one of the servers of a Pune-based Cosmos bank was hacked, the bank lost Rs. 94 crore through fraudulent transactions.
According to a report by Indian Express, the bank registered a FIR with Chatushrungi police station in Pune, in which bank officials alleged that the money was transferred to different bank accounts of foreign countries.
Officials reported that the ATM switch located at the bank’s headquarters on Ganeshkhind Road in Pune have faced a suspected malware attack. They informed that around 80.5 crore was initially transferred outside India in 14,849 debit card transactions. Following this, another 13.9 crore was transferred in SWIFT transactions.
“A complaint has been filed with Pune police about the malware attack and the bank is doing internal audits to investigate the breach. None of the customers’ accounts were touched and it is the bank which has incurred the loss of this money,” the official said.
While cloning the Visa and Rupay debit cards of bank account holders and using a “parallel” system to the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), the hackers self-approved the transactions and withdrew over Rs 94 crore on two to three occasions, the official added. “It was Visa and Rupay who appraised about these fraudulent transactions to Reserve Bank,” said the official.
According to FIR, the incident of frauds occurred on August 11 and August 13, respectively. An investigation have been initiated by a team of Pune’s cyber-crime cell and police. A case has been registered under section 43, 65, 66(C) and 66 (D) of the Information Technology Act and relevant sections of Indian Penal Code.
Along with the money, information of thousands of debit cards also got stolen by the hackers during the malware attack. Top officials of the bank informed that a press conference on the matter will be held later in the day. Cosmos bank is one of the oldest co-operative banks of India which was established in 1906.