Of the ₹13.92-cr lost to Hong Kong bank, Cosmos recovered ₹5.70-cr
According to the cyber police, the amount from the Hong Kong-based bank was a part of ₹13.92 crore transaction which was fraudulently transferred by cyber criminals
Even as the Cosmos bank lost ₹13.92 crore to Hong Kong-based bank, the cyber cell of Pune police managed to recover ₹5.70 crore
The other transactions were either local through ATMs or through online transfers, said officials, adding the amount in most cases has been identified and partially recovered.
According to the cyber police, the amount from the Hong Kong-based bank was a part of ₹13.92 crore transaction which was fraudulently transferred by cyber criminals.The amount was frozen after the police alerted Cosmos Bank.
In one of the biggest cyberattacks in the country, Shivajinagar headquartered Cosmos Cooperative bank was hit by a malware attack where unidentified hackers siphoned off ₹94.42 crore from bank accounts on August 11 and August 13, 2018. The hackers transferred the money into accounts in India and abroad in a series of ATM transactions. On August 13, ₹13.5 crore was transferred by the hackers to a Hong Kong-based Hanseng bank, using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) facility.
Chairman Milind Kale called it an attack on the Indian banking industry from multinational cyber criminals operating from 22 nations.
Following the incident, National Payments Council of India (NPCI) has blamed the Cosmos Bank’s vulnerable “IT infrastructure” for the theft. Bharat Panchal, head, risk management, NPCI, issued a statement stating that its systems were foolproof and that the cyber fraud took place within the bank’s digital infrastructure. “This has happened due to a malware-based attack on the bank’s IT system which caused a fraud. Under the attack, maximum transactions have been reported from outside India.”
