The Maharashtra Police have recovered around Rs 1.1 lakh from two “accidental beneficiaries” of a suspected malware attack earlier this month on the servers of Pune’s Cosmos Cooperative Bank, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday. The bank had reported fraudulent withdrawals of over Rs 94 crore in the attack, domestically as well as overseas.
Unidentified persons reportedly attacked the server of the bank on August 11, using cloned debit cards to withdraw large sums of money through thousands of ATM transactions in India and abroad. More than 12,000 withdrawals, worth Rs 78 crore, were reported from 28 countries outside India, while 2,800 transactions worth Rs 2.5 crore were reported in the country.
The special investigation team of the Pune Police has traced 71 ATMs in 31 cities in Maharashtra, which were allegedly used to withdraw the money, cyber crime police official Jayram Paigude told Pune Mirror. The two customers from whom Rs 1.1 lakh has been seized happened to be withdrawing cash at the same time when the hackers were active. They saw the ATMs show higher balances in their accounts, and withdrew the money.
“We have received that extra money in their account,” Paigude said. “From two customers, Rs 90,000 and Rs 20,000 have been confiscated. Their names are not disclosed as they were not involved in the criminal activity. During the probe, there is a high possibility of recovery from more such customers.”
Senior Inspector Radhika Phadke said such recoveries from the “accidental beneficiaries” of the cyber attack will continue.
“The focus of the probe is now on ascertaining how certain accounts had shown excess balance during the period of the cyber attack and whether there was any pattern in these instances,” an unidentified official told The Indian Express.
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