Country’s second largest urban cooperative bank Cosmos Bank which fell victim to a suspected case of malware and cyberattack in one of its servers, has assured the customers that the Saving, Term and Recurring Deposits of customers are totally safe.
Milind Kale, the Chairman of Pune headquartered UCB told Indian Cooperative on phone that both the Visa and Rupay debit cards fell victim to a malware attack on the ATM switch located at the bank’s headquarters on Ganeshkhind Road in the city. “As soon as the suspicious transactions were reported, the bank immediately shut its VISA and Rupay Debit Card Payment System”, Kale underlined.
“It was on Saturday afternoon of 11th August 2018 that we came to know about the Malware attack on our bank’s Debit Card Payment System. It was observed that unusual repeated transactions were taking place through ATM VISA and Rupay card for nearly about 2 hours, we shut VISA and Rupay Debit Card Payment System immediately, he underlined.
The CBS of the Bank received Debit Card Payment requests via ‘Switching System’. During the Malware attack, a proxy switch was created and all the fraudulent payment approvals were passed by proxy switching system.
Cosmos Bank, in a mail admitted that approximately Rs 78 crores were withdrawn through various ATMs located in 28 countries. It included around 12000 VISA card transactions.
In the same way, approx. Rs 2.50 crore were withdrawn through 2800 Debit Card Transaction in India at various
Media reports say the officials of the cooperative bank filed a complaint at the Chatushrungi police station in Pune. In the FIR it was said that Rs 80.5 crore were initially transferred to a foreign bank in 14,849 transactions of the debit card, and another Rs 13.9 crore transferred in a SWIFT transaction.
The FIR also states that the money transfer took place on two occasions last week — on August 11 and August 13. A team from the local police station and the cyber crime cell of Pune police have launched an investigation in the case.
At its own end, the Bank has appointed a professional forensic agency to investigate the malware attack. The investigation agency will submit its report in next few days regarding the modus operandi of the Malware attack and the exact amount involved therein.
As it is a malware attack on the switch which is operative for the payment gateway of VISA/Rupay Debit Card, and not on the CBS of the bank, the customers’ account and its balances are not at all affected, Cosmos Bank clarified.
It is not so the Bank does not exercise the caution involved in digital transaction. Every year the server and other systems of the bank are inspected by RBI audit and system audit. Besides, the Cosmos Bank is ensuring all the measures for data security and as such the security mechanism is fully operational in the bank.
But the solace has been that none of the fraudulent transaction is debited to any of the customers’ account and will not be debited in future too, said a partially relived Chairman Kale to Indian Cooperative.
“Customers’ deposits are totally safe and I appeal to our customers through you to remain calm and not to panic and also to continue the faith and trust on the 112 years old bank”, Kale said passionately.