Hackers transfer Rs 94 crore from Pune's Cosmos Bank

Suspected hackers siphoned off Rs 94.42 crore from the Cosmos Cooperative Bank Ltd -- the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in India -- to various foreign and domestic bank accounts, police said on Tuesday.

The bank was cyber-attacked twice, on Saturday and on Monday, according to an FIR lodged by an official of Cosmos Bank with Chaturshringi Police Station.

The complaint said the first attack took place on August 11 between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. and on August 13 around 11.30 a.m., affecting its headquarters on Ganeshkhind Road.

A police officer said that during those hours, some unknown persons hacked into the ATM Switch (servers) at the headquarters and acquired the sensitive data of its Visa and RuPay debit card customers.

As per tentative estimates, the hackers siphoned off Rs 78 crore by 12,000 Visa card transactions and transferred it out of the country, including bank accounts in Hong Kong.

Another amount of Rs 2.50 crore from 2,849 transactions was transferred within India, details of which were being investigated, said the police.

Before the bank could react, in a fresh attack on Monday (August 13), the hackers initiated SWIFT transactions and transferred Rs 13.92 crore to the accounts of a company, ALM Trading Ltd, with Hang Seng Bank, Hong Kong. The amounts were soon withdrawn from that bank.

Established in 1906, the Pune-headquartered Cosmos Bank is the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in the country, enjoying the status of a multi-state scheduled bank.

--IANS

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