Fergie's Tech Blog

Australia: Russian Link in $4500 Online Theft

Karen Dearne writes on Australian IT:

Forensic investigators have traced evidence of a theft of $4500 from a Sydney woman's online bank account to a Russian server holding many more sensitive details captured by a Trojan horse hidden on her computer.

Sandra Bridekirk's brush with cybercrime began when she noticed two unauthorised deductions - each for $1485 - from her account with a major bank on two days last week.

When she rang the bank, she was told a third payment was programmed to occur that day. "The scary thing was that the transactions had been done with my personal access number and my password, and even my husband doesn't know those," she said.

"It was set up to keep taking money out - the sum is apparently just under our daily limit - every day until it was all gone."

Ms Bridekirk was told the payments had been made to an interstate bank account. The third transaction was stopped, but $3000 has been frozen until her bank and police finish their investigations. A further shock awaited Ms Bridekirk when an examination of her computer revealed all of her web credentials had been stolen - including all her user names and passwords, and her email address lists.

posted by Fergie @ 11/10/2008 07:53:00 PM