Fraudsters have managed to steal around 4.5 million euros (about $5 million) from a bank account belonging to Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost airline.
According to the Independent, the business confirmed that the theft took place last week via a fraudulent wire transfer through a Chinese bank.
Ryanair is working with banks, the Criminal Assets Bureau in Dublin, and similar agencies in Asia to recover the money, and they have apparently succeeded: the stolen funds have been frozen, and the company expects them to be returned to it soon.
They say they have "taken the necessary measures to ensure that this type of transfer cannot be repeated," but they did not offer any details on how this will be ensured.
"There are very few publicly available details on how this fraud was carried out. If, as some reports suggest, the fraud was the result of a hack, it would seem likely that the methods used by the criminals would have been to phish credentials from key staff members with access to the relevant banking systems," said Brian Honan, BH Consulting and Special Advisor on Internet Security at Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).
“Criminals are now developing their attacks targeting people instead of the computers they use, so our defenses can no longer rely solely on technical controls.
But we need the right processes in place to enable key systems to protect staff and ensure they have appropriate and effective security awareness training. We also need to review our financial instruments to implement the most effective fraud prevention and detection mechanisms to better protect our customers’ accounts.”
