Hackers planted malware on an automated teller machine (ATM) server belonging to an Indian bank as part of a criminal scheme which saw the theft of nearly 944 million rupees (US $13.5 million) in a co-ordinated attack across 28 countries last weekend.
India’s Cosmos Bank, based in the western city of Pune, suffered an attack which saw hackers use malware to steal customer information from the company’s ATM server and then use that data to clone thousands of Visa and RuPay debit cards.
The debit cards were then used over the course of the weekend in a number of countries including Canada, Hong Kong, and India. In all, 14,859 transactions were made at cash machines, resulting in the theft of 805 million rupees.
To add insult to injury, the hackers also transferred 139 million rupees to a Hong Kong-based bank account by ordering three unauthorised transactions over the SWIFT inter-bank communication network.