Another private bank skimmed by hackers

KARACHI: As incidents of skimming, that is stealing account holders’ information through devices and cameras fixed in ATMs, continue, reports of another breach emerged on Monday. The target this time is Faysal Bank, which has been attacked the third year in a row.

The accounts of Faysal Bank customers were previously hacked in December 2015 and June 2016. According to reports that emerged on social media, the bank has suffered a breach once again.

Following the reports, the bank blocked the cards of customers whose accounts were suspected to be breached and later issued new cards.

The bank’s official has denied any incident of the fraud in Faysal Bank in Karachi and Lahore in response to our queries, but our Lahore correspondent also confirmed from Industrial Branch near Hussain Chowk that the incident took place in Lahore.

However, the amount stolen and the number of accounts hacked could not be confirmed.

It is worth mentioning here that earlier this month a major skimming attack on Pakistan’s largest bank Habib Bank Limited took place after hackers fixed skimming device and camera at Dolmen Mall Clifton ATM, a posh location that caters to high-end customers. As a result, Rs 10 million was syphoned off from customers account in a few hours before the bank sprang into action. Later the security officials made some arrests in connection with the incident.

A banker on the condition of anonymity told Pakistan Today that skimming incidents are happening at almost every bank, but some banks are more vulnerable to it than others because of their security protocols.

He added Askari bank also got hit but at a very small scale since customers have to call the bank to enable online transaction without which hackers cannot steal money. The bank, however, notified all its customers on Monday that all customers have to reset their passwords in order to do any transactions since old passwords will not work anymore, he added.