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Fraudster Acquiesce To Online Bank Theft

In an instance of theft involving an online transaction, a computer logger virus was installed to steal $12,000 from Westpac's customer's account.

Christopher Dean Lees, aged 22 brought in a district court in Christchurch, New Zealand was accused of two charges of illegally controlling a computer system in order to steal money from a customer's account. He admitted the charges. Police told Judge Colin Doherty that Lees was hired by someone to use his Kiwibank account to steal the money as some false payment. This person is also reported to access a Westpac account on May 12, 2005 by a keylogger program that helped him to log keystrokes on a computer, which enabled to intercept user information like passwords and credit card numbers and transmit them back to the hacker.

The fake payment was submitted with Westpac and $12,000 was transferred to Christopher Dean Lees' Kiwibank account. Lees was caught on a surveillance camera when he was making two withdrawals amounting $9,400 at 'Auckland Post Shops'. Westpac is trying to restore the stolen money.

Lees has been accused of other charges as well, which he admitted. These included attempting to illegally use documents, committing intentional damage, owning tools to steal vehicles, illegally interfering with a vehicle, illegally possessing knife and entering in other people's areas.

In another recent happening the 'Internet and Commercial Bank of China' became a victim of theft of about $48,000 stolen from the online accounts of 200 customers. The Bank was accused of not providing safety and security for online banking. However, ICBC did not admit this and described the theft a result of carelessness of customers.

These events prove that people must be cautious and use safe practices while conducting banking transactions over the Internet. They must especially be vigilant of keylogger programs that record keystrokes to acquire sensitive information of the user from his computer to send it to a remote hacker. Users must install good anti-spyware and anti-virus programs on their systems and keep them updated. A firewall can also be deployed, which alerts a user of any malicious program trying to enter the system.

Related article: Fraudsters Link Blogger.com To phishing Site

» SPAMfighter News - 8/29/2006

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