South African bank accounts hacked

Hacks hit South African Standard Bank and took "some money" from client accounts, group spokesman Ross Linstrom said on Wednesday.

Linstrom said that there was some money taken but very little, adding: "That is not our concern. Our concern is tightening up [ security]. In terms of people, it is less than ten."

He said these were isolated incidents.

Said Herman Singh, Standard Bank's director of architecture and technology engineering, said: "There is no evidence of an organized syndicate being involved in these incidents."

"... it would seem that the customer's personal credentials have been compromised to somebody that they may know. Customers should be vigilant, and not share their personal credentials with anybody, be this wittingly or unwittingly," he said.

However, Linstrom confirmed that several customers had reported suspicious prepaid transfers on their accounts and funds were transferred to a prepaid cellphone account.

"A Standard Bank Internet security team physically examined several customers' computers and found no malicious software," he said, adding the probe into the incidents was "ongoing".

On Tuesday the Cape Times reported that fraudsters hacked into the accounts of clients of all three major banks.

The newspaper's website said fraudsters had in the past three months gained access to the online accounts of First National Bank, Standard and Absa bank clients, stealing thousands of rands.

The fraudsters had found a way of hacking into personal or business accounts and then transferring money from these accounts to either cellphone or Telkom prepaid accounts.

All three banks confirmed on Monday that their systems had been breached.

Source: Xinhua