South Africa's Standard Bank has confirmed that it is the latest bank to be hacked into, admitting that it had credit card data stolen and used in an elaborate scheme carried out in Japan.
On May 15th, between 5am and 8am, more than 100 people withdrew $13 million from 1400 ATMs across Japan in less than three hours. The coordinated heist involved forged credit cards, and data stolen from South Africa's Standard Bank. As The BBC reports,
The withdrawals targeted 7-Eleven cash machines, which unlike most in Japan accept foreign cards.
South Africa's Standard Bank estimated its total losses at $19.25m.
"Standard Bank has taken swift action to contain the matter" it said in a statement.
Japanese police are now examining security camera footage to identify suspects, and both countries are working with world police body Interpol to investigate how the data was stolen and how the heist was co-ordinated.
Standard Bank described the heist as "a sophisticated, coordinated fraud incident."
This is the latest in a series of incidents where bank cyber security measures have been insufficient to thwart hackers. Recall that just a few months ago $100 million was stolen from the Bangladesh central bank via the New York Fed, and just recently hackers stole another $12 million by rerouting "secure" global payment system transactions of Banco del Austro, an Ecuadorean bank.
At what point banks begin to get serious about cyber security remains to be seen, but one thing is clear, they are losing the game... and depositors money.