Tesco Bank suspended all online transactions due to a cyber heist

Pierluigi Paganini November 07, 2016

Tesco Bank halted all online transactions after a cyber heist affected thousands of its customers. An investigation is ongoing.

Tesco Bank is going to adopt a strong measure in response to a cyber attack, the financial institution will freeze customers’ online transactions. The measure was announced by the chief executive Benny Higgins, the bank has admitted that 40,000 of 136,000 current banking customers had their accounts hacked over the weekend, and unfortunately, 50 percent of them have lost money.

Tesco Bank is owned by Tesco PLC since 2008 and has currently 7.8 million customer accounts. Tesco confirmed to have detected suspicious activity within accounts “late on Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday morning.”

Higgins explained that the bank has adopted the emergency security measure of the cyber heist.

“We apologise for the worry and inconvenience that this has caused for customers, and can only stress that we are taking every step to protect our customers’ accounts,” said Mr Higgins.

“That is why, as a precautionary measure, we have taken the decision today to temporarily stop online transactions from current accounts.”

The bank reported the incident to the authorities and is currently supporting an ongoing investigation. The Online banking service will resume “when we are on top of the issue”, Mr Higgins told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.programme.

This attack will remain in history due to the number of customers affected and the emergency measure adopted by the financial institution.

Tesco has downplayed the amount of money that was stolen from the customers’ accounts, anyway the bank will refund all losses and has apologized for poor customer service that supported the users that tried to receive information by calling the bank over the weekend.

Tesco bank -cyber-heist

According to the Telegraph, one man tweeted his available balance had dropped by £700 without and he never made a transaction.

“We have been hacked, all money gone, no email or text! Appalling response from Tesco so far nobody answering,” one tweeted.

While security experts are trying to identify the threat actor behind the attack, Mr Higgins refused to speculate on the possible culprit.

“In the modern world it is impossible to be totally impregnable. We are in dialogue with the national crime agencies and with the financial conduct authority.” he said.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Tesco cyber heist, cybercrime)

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banking cyber heist Cybercrime Tesco Bank