Online card fraud in Abu Dhabi bank accounts by cyber cheats

ABU DHABI: The customers of two leading banks here have been cheated by fraud transactions using cards worth thousands of dirhams by cyber cheats. The banks have since cautioned its customers.

Several customers of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi have reported unauthorised transactions ranging from from Dh1,500 to Dh8,000 at clothing stores in the United States.

An Abu Dhabi resident had a charge of Dh1,900 on his card during Eid. It could take about three months to get back the funds, reported the National. Mohamad Amin Hasbini, of the internet security Kaspersky Labs, which has offices in Dubai, said another recent theft of data had affected cardholders from a number of banks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. He said, “Several hundred cardholders were affected.”

It is suspected that an organised criminal group is working to defraud accounts. The hackers may have accessed networks of companies dealing in servicing of bank cards.

In 2013, RAKBank and Bank Muscat were defrauded to the tune of US$45 million after two companies in India that processed payments for MasterCard had their networks hacked.

The National cautioned: "Just as the low-crime environment of this country can lead some homeowners to drop their guard, so credit card holders can sometimes be a little lax in ensuring their card information does not fall into the wrong hands...This is a scenario in which everybody has to play their part... The banks too need to play their part that many of the security features used are up to current global standards...But the issue extends well beyond the card holders and their banks...to third parties such as telecoms companies, utility providers and similar entities."