Major bank fraud ring broken up

By Tim Wilson - DarkReading

The Romanian police had a busy Wednesday, breaking up a major bank fraud ring and arresting another individual who is accused of breaking into major U.S. government and university servers.

According to news reports, the Romanian police, working along with the FBI, arrested 20 individuals who allegedly built cloned bank sites and then drained the accounts of users who were lured into logging in to them.

Editor's Note:  Did you know that the HomeATM SwipePIN device can be utilized as a log-in authentication device for online banking? Now you do.  More confirmation that we kick booty!  Here's why:

Instead of a bank providing the inherently weak (and what should have been obsolete years ago) username/password function, online banking customers could simply swipe their card and enter their PIN. 

Wow...an end-to-end encrypted login which would have prevented what transpired in this story.  Not only would HomeATM be able to identify that it was a cloned site, but the cloned site wouldn't be able to do ANYTHING with the E2EE 3DES DUKPT sign in data anyway.   

Suffice it to say that a cloned website wouldn't work with because we've cloned the secure process that banks use at the lobby of the bank's ATM machine.  Except we encrypt the Track 2 data as well.  So now the consumer is SwipePIN...instead of the fraudsters!   Sorry Click Jackers!

The information provided by our SwipePIN device is for non-cloned banks eye's only! Hey Bankers...the phone lines are open!  

Continuing with the story:

The cloned sites, which were deployed in Italy and Spain, looked and operated like the actual bank Websites, but they asked users questions that ultimately led to the divulging of personal bank details, according to Stefan Negrila, chief of the Romanian Police's organized crime division. Once obtained, the hackers allegedly used that information to access the real bank Websites and transfer or withdraw cash. 

Nearly 100 police officers from special troops entered suspects' houses in major cities across Romania, the reports said. Investigators said the ring stole at least 350,000 euros.

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