Malware Attack: India's one of the oldest & biggest Co-operative Bank loses more that 94 Crores to Hackers

August 14,2018:

In one of the biggest ever Malware Attack on one of the oldest urban cooperative bank in the India, hackers duped the Pune based Cosmos bank for over Rs 94 crore.

According to FIR lodged by Suhas Gokhale, Managing Director of the bank, in the malware attack on the ATM Switch (Server) at the Cosmos Tower headquarters of the bank in Pune, information of VISA and RuPay debit cardholders of Bank was stolen and 14,849 transactions were carried out.

Of these 12,000 transactions were related to VISA debit cards through which Rs 78 crore were siphoned off through transactions, while Rs 2.50 crore were siphoned off through 2,849 transactions on RuPay debit cards. The transactions were carried out between 3 pm and 10 pm on August 11.

All these transactions were carried with false approval from Cosmos bank to transaction requests and NPCI.

In another attack on Monday August 13 at around 11 am, hacker initiated swift transaction requests VISA and diverted Rs 13.92 crore was to an account in the name of ALM Trading Ltd at Hanseng bank in Hongkong, which was immediately withdrawn.

Transactions were made from 21 different countries.

Bank officials, however, stated that customers' money has not been compromised.

Officials added that,"The Malware Attack is not on the Core Banking System (CBS) in which customers' accounts are maintained. There was a Malware Attack on the switch which is operative for the payment gateways of VISA/RuPay debit card. Customer accounts or balances are not affected at all. CBS of the Bank is fully safe".

Established in 1906, Cosmos Bank is the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in the country, enjoying the status of a multi-state scheduled bank.

Cosmos Bank has 79,000 shareholders and annual transactions are in the tune of 18,000 Crore.

According a Senior official of the bank, alerted by the huge number of international transactions, the VISA officials had intimated the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that had in turn alerted the Cosmos Bank on Saturday.

However, before Bank officials could react the hackers lodged another attack on Monday morning.