Sri Lanka police arrest two men over cyber theft at the Taiwan Bank

The Sri Lanka authorities have arrested two men allegedly involved in cyber heist at an unnamed Taiwan bank that occurred last week.

The Sri Lanka police have arrested two men allegedly involved in the Taiwan cyberheist, the suspects are accused to have hacked into computers at a Taiwan bank and stole millions of dollars last week.

According to an official, the duo was identified and arrested after they tried to withdraw large sums of money that had been wired to their accounts with a Sri Lankan bank branch in the capital Colombo.

The police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is still investigating the hack along with Taiwan police, the law enforcement agencies suspect the gang was composed by other individuals.

“We are looking at some $1.3 million that had come into three accounts in Sri Lanka,” the official involved with the investigation told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have taken two people into custody and we are looking for one more person.”

The Sri Lankan authorities did not disclose the name of the bank in Taiwan targeted victim of the cyber heist or the sum crooks has stolen. but a Sri Lankan media report said tens of millions of dollars had been stolen.

According to a Sri Lankan media, cybercriminals have stolen tens of millions of dollars had been wired out of the island.

The Financial Regulatory Commission in Tapei confirmed that the local Far Eastern International Bank’s SWIFT system had been infected with a computer virus but did not provide further details about the hack.

The Taiwanese media quoted the bank as saying that it experts discovered anomalies in its SWIFT system, the internal staff detected suspicious transactions starting Thursday to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and the United States.

The good news is that the Taiwan police have recovered most of the money with the help of counterparts in other countries.

In February 2015, Sri Lanka authorities investigated a similar cyber heist that involved the Bangladesh central bank, crooks transferred $20 million of stolen money to a Sri Lankan businesswoman.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Taiwan bank, cybercrime)

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