Japanese authorities have confirmed that, on 15th May this year, a co-ordinated network of hackers in the country made off with nearly $12.7 million in less than two hours. The gang were able to do so by stealing bank details from South African bank customers and cloning 1,600 physical credit cards. With these cards, they then began literally withdrawing the cash from 1,400 convenience store ATMs across Japan.
Although such feats are not unheard of, it’s much more common that such information is used for digital transfers and online thefts, and such a huge haul from physical cloning is rare indeed.
Over 100 individuals are believed to have taken part, and it’s still unknown how they got their hands on the information, but INTERPOL are hoping to make arrests this week.
