Hackers infiltrated into escrow bank accounts of a Thane based company, posing as bank executive
In a major cybercrime incident that has sent shockwaves through the city, unidentified hackers successfully infiltrated the escrow bank account of a Thane-based company, resulting in a staggering loss of approximately Rs 25 crore.
Escrow accounts are majorly held by third parties, serve as temporary repositories during transaction processes between two parties.
PUNE city police have launched a probe into two separate cases in which cyber criminals posing as bank executives gained remote access to phones of two people on the pretext of helping them link their PAN details to their bank accounts and siphoned off a total of Rs 25 lakh from their bank accounts.
In the case registered at Samarth police station, a 48-year-old senior manager working with a multinational engineering company in Pune was cheated to the tune of Rs 18.6 lakh in the second week of October.
Officials said that in both the cases, the victims received messages saying their PAN card details was yet to be linked to their respective bank accounts. The suspects posed as executives of private sector banks where the victims had accounts.
Subsequently, they were sent a file on their phone with an application which they were asked to download. After opening the application, the suspects were asked to fill in their personal details and bank account details.
Preliminary probe in both the cases revealed that the applications they were asked to download were remote access applications, which allowed the suspects to siphon money from their bank accounts.
Officials from Wanawadi and Samarth police station said probes have been launched into the phone numbers and bank accounts used by the cyber criminals in these two cases.
Cyberhygiene is important and people awareness towards cyber crime is still not matured enough, such cases are example how the masses overlook all information’s that is provided by banks to remain cyber safe.
(Image courtesy: www.digwatch.com)
