An Indian bank lost 944 million rupees (about 11.8 million euros) after hackers made fraudulent ATM withdrawals. Cosmos Bank said the hackers stole employee details after installing malware on the bank's ATM server, before simultaneously withdrawing money from 28 different countries.
Before the attack, the FBI had made a related announcement about an imminent attack that was about to occur, but there was not enough evidence to detect and block it.
“We know from past attacks that such attacks are mainly carried out against small or medium-sized organizations, due to the (usually) weaker security of their systems, but also their potential greater vulnerabilities.”
Initially, the Indian bank was hit with three unauthorized SWIFT transfers to a company in Hong Kong. The amount stolen was approximately 1.75 million euros. According to the bank, hackers managed to breach the central switching system that the bank uses for debit card payments.
“During the attack, a proxy switch was activated, and all unauthorized payment authorizations were routed through it,” Cosmos.
However, this is not the first time that such an attack has occurred. In February, another Indian bank, City Union Bank, fell victim to a similar attack, when a group of hackers managed to steal $1 million using the same technique used against Cosmos Bank.
The series of attacks, however, begins even earlier, when in 2016 another Bangladesh-based bank lost $81 million after an attack believed to have originated from North Korea.
