Police foil £220m plot by cyber thieves to rob bank
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The gang planned to hack their way into the computer systems at Sumitomo Mitsui, Japan’s third largest bank, and transfer money electronically to ten bank accounts around the world. The plot would have dwarfed traditional robberies such as the £26 million raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast last year and sent shockwaves throughout the financial world. As British detectives questioned an Israeli suspected of being a frontman for the gang yesterday, financial institutions across London’s banking and money markets were on their guard against other attempts. The hackers infiltrated the bank’s system using “keystroking” equipment that enabled them to record and sift every key stroke made on computers. The gang could then learn account numbers, passwords and other sensitive information that they would use to order electronic transfers of cash round the world. But last October the bank’s IT security staff realised that they were under attack, reported their suspicions to Britain’s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit and detectives began an international manhunt. Takashi Morita, head of communications at Sumitomo in Tokyo, said the company had not suffered any financial loss and investigations were still under way. New security measures have been introduced. In Israel a lawyer representing Yaron Bolondi, 31, an odd- job man accused of money laundering and trying to transfer £13.9 million from the bank, said his client knew nothing of any international conspiracy. Ilan Mizrahi said Mr Bolondi was approached by a stranger who asked if he would receive several million pounds through a dormant business account he controlled. Mr Bolondi passed on details of a company called Varo Petrol Distribution. Mr Mizrahi said his client “met this guy he didn’t know some place. He just thought the whole thing was a joke and so in the spirit of a joke he gave the guy details of his bank account. When he was arrested he had no idea what it was about.” But Israeli officers believe Mr Bolondi is a frontman for others in the plot and he was remanded in custody on Wednesday. Police claimed that Mr Bolondi had given a large number of false addresses to cover his tracks. The addresses given for both his company’s registered office and bank account proved to be fake. In London investigators remain reluctant to say anything publicly but computer experts said the case highlighted the growing threat to financial institutions from organised gangs of cyber-criminals. Another British-based bank discovered that 80 of its Swift banking machines, which are used to transfer money internationally, had been fitted with “keystroke monitoring” adaptors in December. They were forced to replace their keyboards with more secure equipment. Steve Purdham, of SurfControl, an internet security company, said the Sumitomo plot “must act as a wake-up call for the banking and finance sector and business in general”. Graham Cluley, an anti-virus specialist at the computer security firm Sophos, said this type of electronic attack was becoming increasingly popular with criminals. Richard Archdeacon, of the internet security firm Symantec, said: “We have seen a meteoric rise in cyberfraud that specifically targets confidential data.” Gangs are known to have breached security at several British banks in the past year but financial institutions are reluctant to disclose potentially damaging information to police. One in five financial institutions admitted it was a victim of fraud in a police survey last year but only 56 per cent of them contacted officers. One British bank recently discovered a member of staff making two copies of data back-up tapes. He took one of them home, altered the information to give himself a bank account with “significant” funds from other accounts and then swapped it with the original back-up tape. Another large multinational bank had “source code” computer programme data which can be used by hackers stolen using a £29 USB memory stick. For Sumitomo Mitsui, a successful plot would have been a new disaster for the bank that has struggled with a history of bad luck. In the late 1990s, it lost £1.3 billion after auditors uncovered the world’s biggest rogue trading fraud at the bank. Over the course of ten years, Yasuo Hamanaka hid losses after a huge bet on the future price of copper turned sour. In 1998, Hamanaka was jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and forgery but a legal battle between Sumitomo and some of the City firms with which Hamanka dealt rumbled on until October last year, when the bank settled a £500 million law suit with a French broking firm. In 1990, the bank’s chairman had to resign after police arrested a branch manager who allegedly helped to finance a share-price manipulation ring. The bank was in trouble again a year later, when executives were heavily criticised for lending millions to Itoman, a Japanese trading house that subsequently became embroiled in allegedly illegal art deals worth £242 million. In 1994, a senior Sumitomo manager was murdered, allegedly by the Japanese mafia. The banker had been responsible for dealing with sokaiya — criminals who threatened to disrupt annual general meetings unless they were paid off. |