Cosmos Bank cyber fraud: Pune Police forms SIT

The Pune Police has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the cyber fraud in Cosmos Bank, in which hackers allegedly siphoned off over Rs 94 crore through a malware attack on the bank's server in two days, a top police official said.

The police are getting the transaction details from the bank and the primary focus right now will be to probe the domestic transactions, in which Rs 2.5 crore were withdrawn from ATM machines. Cross-border investigation depends on the co-operation and help from the respective countries, Jyotipriya Singh, deputy commissioner of police (cyber and economic offences wing), Pune Police, told PTI.

"An SIT has been formed to investigate the case," Singh said, adding that she would be supervising the probe and work as a nodal officer to coordinate with various agencies.

The co-operative bank had informed the police about an abnormal transaction in an ATM located in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. The police are also checking when was the latest cybersecurity audit of the bank's systems conducted and whether the systems were protected or not, the DCP said.

"Though there are 15,000 transactions, but along with the fraudulent ones, there are genuine transactions also. So we are seeking a segregated list of all these transactions from the bank," the officer said.

Cosmos Bank chairman Milind Kale had on Tuesday said the fraudulent transactions were carried out last Saturday and on Monday and the malware attack originated in Canada. "In two days, hackers withdrew a total Rs 78 crore from various ATMs in 28 countries, including Canada, Hong Kong and a few ATMs in India, and another Rs 2.5 crore were taken out within India," he had said. On Monday, hackers again fraudulently transferred Rs 13.92 crore in a Hong Kong-based bank.

Talking about the Rs 13.92-crore transaction, Singh said they had not received yet the report on whether the amount was in the banking transit or withdrawn.