In just two hours, hackers broke into ATMs in 28 countries, stealing millions of dollars.
By: Angelica Andrade
Hackers stole $14 million over a weekend in August 2018, targeting the Pune-based Cosmos Cooperative Bank. In this, some men considered that they were going to participate in a supporting role in an action movie, when in fact they were deceived into becoming “money mules”, since they had to collect the cash from the millionaire bank robbery.
This is how, on that Saturday afternoon, the workers at the bank’s main office suddenly received a chain of overwhelming messages that related warnings about Visa payment cards in the United States, announcing that there could be lawsuits for unusual withdrawals of large amounts. money in ATMs. However, by reviewing its own software, Cosmos identified that there were no suspicious transactions, which is why 30 minutes later, Visa was approved (to be sure) to cancel all requests for money and all types of cards.
Hours later, Visa issued the list of suspicious transactions, showing that in just 120 minutes 12,000 different withdrawals were made at multiple ATMs in various parts of the world. This was described as an “audacious crime”, characterized by magnitude and careful planning.
Among the countries from where criminals stole money are the United States, the United Kingdom,
Russia and the United Arab Emirates, what is striking is that everything happened in two hours and thirteen minutes, which led to the estimate that it was an extraordinary move on a global scale.
Consequently, those in charge of investigating the case traced the sequences back to the origins, finding a group of hackers who received orders, possibly from North Korea.
From the million-dollar heist, the Lazarus Group is accused of purporting to steal US$1 billion from the central bank of Bangladesh in 2016 and of sending the WannaCry cyberattack that sought to blackmail organizations and individuals around the world, including the National Health Service of United Kingdom.
At this time, most of the defendants are in prison awaiting trial.