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New online hacking steals money from bank accounts unnoticed

New online hacking steals money from bank accounts unnoticed

Posted January. 24, 2014 06:14,   

한국어

A crime ring who embedded a malicious code in computers of bank account holders and snatched tens of thousands of won from their accounts by faking receiving accounts and falsifying transfer amounts, have been caught by the police. The online banking program of Nonghyup Bank and Shinhan Bank are known to have been hacked by the crime ring.

The Cyber Terror Response Center of the National Police Agency announced on Thursday that it arrested two people including a 26-year-old Korean Chinese identified by his surname Kim for taking 90 million won from 81 people between Sept. 27 and Oct. 14 through a new memory hacking method (a fraud with the use of computer and others), and booked another five people including a 28-year-old supplier of fake bank accounts identified by his surname Mun without detention. For three Korean Chinese people who distributed malicious codes, including the leader identified by his surname Choi, the police have requested criminal investigation to China.

Kim and others directly falsified the receiving bank account numbers and remittance amounts. But victims did not recognize their money was stolen because the account numbers and transfer amounts on their computer screens looked just normal. Since the hacking method used this time was not about stealing financial information such as security card numbers needed for credit transfer, even those who use OTP generators suffered damages.

The method is considered the most advanced in "memory hacking," through which memory data within an infected computer is falsified. This is different from the existing method, which infects computers with a malicious code and steals security numbers by generating errors during online transactions or displaying fake security pop-ups.

An official from the police warned that “though banks have upgraded their security programs to ward off the malicious code, similar cases may occur again if new malicious codes are generated.”