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Published in The Straits Times, July 9, 2002
ONLINE FRAUD
China
national then withdrew money, fled to Malaysia IT TOOK just one hour for the hacker who broke into the computers of 21 DBS Internet Banking account-holders to move $62,000 of their money into his own DBS account. And
within the next hour, the 30-year-old Chinese national walked into a DBS
Bank branch, withdrew the money and made his getaway by heading across the
Causeway to Malaysia.
DBS
Bank revealed this yesterday at a press conference to explain how a hacker
had made off with the money on June 19 without breaching or triggering the
bank's Internet defences.
Investigations
so far show that the bank's computer security systems were not breached,
nor was the hacking carried out by one of its employees.
The
head of the bank's corporate security, Mr Ng Peng Khian, said there was a
high possibility that the culprit had hacked into the victims' computers
instead.
Using
a Trojan Horse program, he could have captured the user-identification
codes and passwords to access their online accounts. About
two weeks before he withdrew the money, he entered the victims' online
accounts to make sure that the user IDs and passwords were still valid.
Describing
what happened on June 19 itself, Mr Ng said: 'He started at 8.19 am, and
managed to penetrate the accounts of 21 bank customers. He stopped at 9.20
am.'
From
each account, he took between $200 and $4,999, the maximum transfer limit
allowed. 'At
9.56 am, he turned up at one of our branches and made a withdrawal.'
He
withdrew $62,000, the total he had stolen from the 21 accounts, but did
not empty out his own account.
He
then fled across the Causeway to Malaysia.
DBS
was alerted to the missing funds that afternoon, when the first victim
called the bank. The other 20 customers were alerted by the bank when it
traced the movement of the funds.
DBS
has since refunded all 21 account-holders, but future victims may not be
as lucky. Said the bank's head of personal banking, Ms Elsie Foh:
'Naturally, if it is not our fault, we would like our Internet users to be
aware that there are risks. 'And
if they are not taking the necessary precautions, then I do not see how
the liability can be put onto anyone who is actually not responsible or
accountable for it.'
As
to whether the bank would consider informing a customer before approving
the online transfer of funds, Ms Foh said that, two years ago, the bank
used to delay online transfers for two days to give customers enough time
to stop a transaction. But
this was dropped and transfers were made immediate after customers said
they wanted the transactions done speedily. To
help its 370,000 online customers tighten security, Ms Foh said the bank
plans to offer anti-virus programs at a discount. |
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