Cosmos Co-operative Bank loses Rs.94 crore to cyber frauds

Cosmos Cooperative Bank has reported fraudulent withdrawals amounting to a staggering Rs.94 crore due to cyber attacks, including malware attacks, on its debit card payment system and SWIFT transactions.

The bank said that about Rs.78 crore was withdrawn through ATMs located across 28 countries. This includes 12,000 Visa card transactions. In the same way, about Rs.2.5 crore was withdrawn via 2,800 debit card transactions in India.

Further, Rs.13.9 crore was transferred to Hong Kong via three SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) transactions. SWIFT is a co-operative organisation that operates a network for the exchange of payment and other financial messages between financial institutions.

The bank learnt about the malware attack on its debit card payment system on August 11. It observed unusual, repeated transactions taking place through ATM Visa and RuPay cards for two hours. “As soon as the suspicious transactions were reported, the bank shut down its Visa and RuPay debit card payment system.

The core banking system (CBS) of the bank receives debit card payment requests via the switching system,” a bank statement said. It added that during the malware attack, a proxy switch was created that approved all the fraudulent payments.

None of the transactions were debited to customers’ accounts, said the bank, adding that savings and recurring accounts as well as term deposits are safe. The bank’s Chairman Milind Anant Kale said customer accounts are safe, but declined to disclose the names of the vendors of the security systems.

The bank has appointed a forensic agency that will submit a report in a few days on the modus operandi of the attack.