New Delhi: The USD 45 million global ATM heist, in which data security of two Indian companies was breached, is being probed by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team and the government`s cyber watchdog will suggest corrective steps to resist this kind of incidents in future.
"We have started studying the impact of this cyber breach since it is said to have impacted solution of two Indian IT companies among various others. Preliminary findings should be done completed in a week. ICERT will suggest corrective measures, if required, to resist this kind of incidents in future," ICERT Director General Gulshan Rai told PTI.
An international criminal gang made two coordinated hits on ATMs around the world in matter of hours recently, withdrawing USD 5 million on December 21 last year and another USD 40 million on February 19 this year, according to US court documents.
According to banks and investigators, the gang made large cash withdrawals after hacking into Indian and US credit card processing companies to raise the balances and withdrawal limits on MasterCard prepaid debit cards.
Pune-headquartered ElectraCard Systems and Bangalore based EnStage both of which specialise in processing payment transactions of clients like banks, were hit by the hacker group.
"One of our customers was affected by the crime. EnStage is deeply committed to information security, and we will continue to take all reasonable measures to ensure our networks are secured from criminal actors," Enstage said in a statement.
According to the US government`s filings, the first operation, on December 22, 2012, targeted a credit card processor that processed transactions for prepaid MasterCard debit cards issued by the United Arab Emirates based National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC, also known as Rakbank.
The second attack by the hacker group occurred on the afternoon of February 19 and lasted into the early morning of February 20, 2013 when they breached the network of a credit card processor that serviced MasterCard prepaid debit cards issued by the Bank of Muscat, located in Oman.
PTI
