Cyber cops foil £220m Sumitomo bank raid

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/17/sumitomo_cyber-heist_foiled/print.html>

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 Original URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/17/sumitomo_cyber-heist_foiled/

Cyber cops foil £220m Sumitomo bank raid
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Thursday 17th March 2005 11:51 GMT

A hi-tech bid to steal £220m ($423m) from the London offices of the
Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui has been foiled by police. A gang of cyber
crooks compromised Sumitomo's computer systems in October 2004 prior to an
unsuccessful attempt to transfer money to a series of 10 accounts overseas,
the FT reports.

Yeron Bolondi, 32, was arrested by Israeli police on Wednesday after an
attempt to transfer £13.9m to a bank account in the country. He has been
charged with money laundering and deception. The plan was thwarted before
any cash was transferred, the BBC reports
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4356661.stm).

Takashi Morita, head of communications at Sumitomo in Tokyo, told
(http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=620980) the Press
Association that the bank had not suffered any losses as a result of the
attempted heist. "We have undertaken various measures in terms of security
and we have not suffered any financial damage," he said. Details of how the
bank's systems were compromised remain sketchy though several reports
implicate the use of key logging software as part of the plot.

A spokeswoman for the National High-Tech Crime Unit declined to comment on
its ongoing investigation into the attempted robbery of Sumitomo.

A spokesman for the bank in London declined to say anything, other than the
attempted raid was "a complete failure".
-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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