South Africa's Postbank loses R42 million to cybercrime gang

South Africa's Postbank loses R42 million to cybercrime gang

South Africa's Postbank lost R42 million (£3.5 million) to cybercriminals who hacked into its computer systems and withdrew the looted cash from ATMs over the New Year holiday period.

The crooks gained access to a Post Office employee's computer and used it to deposit cash into a number of bogus acccounts that were opened across the country late last year.

The cash was withdrawn from ATMs in Gauteng, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal over three days between 1-3 January.

The country's National Intelligence Agency has launched a high-level probe into the incident.

The bank told local newspapers that none of its customers were affected, but declined further comment.

Comments: (1)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 17 January, 2012, 18:42Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

With cybercrime attacks becoming sophisticated enough to compromise the DoD and their smartcards (http://labs.alienvault.com/labs/index.php/2012/when-the-apt-owns-your-smart-cards-and-certs) attacking a normal Windows-PCs with mere passwords (rated at IPF-2 in http://middleware.internet2.edu/idtrust/2008/papers/01-noor-ipf.pdf) is child's play.

Arshad Noor
StrongAuth, Inc.

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