BANGKOK, Jan 18 (TNA) – The Bank of Thailand (BoT) and the Thai Bankers Association (TBA) warn the public against fake applications embedded with malware, which was used by a hacker to transfer money from a victim’s bank account.
The BoT and the TBA discussed and investigated the case of a cybercrime victim, whose money was transferred from his account by a hacker and the theft was blamed on a modified charging cable.
The BoT on Wednesday released a statement, saying the investigation found that the case was not caused by charging cables but malware attack. The victim was lured to install a fake application embedded with malware.
The hacker then skimmed his personal data including financial transaction information and controlled his mobile by remote access to transfer money from the account of the victim.
The BoT has worked with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, the Office of National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the Royal Thai Police to tackle the problem. It issued measures for financial institutes to prevent such a cybercrime. Among those measures are improving mobile banking security and shutting down malicious websites, linked to fraudulent activities.
People are advised to refrain from using rooted or jailbroken devices, to update the latest version of mobile banking applications. They must not click on suspicious links or install unverified applications to protect themselves from potential financial losses.
The BoT instructed financial insitutes to assist their customers who fall victim to online crimes witin five days when it is proved that they didn’t involve in giving personal information to criminals.
Regarding another form of cybercrime such as phinging SMS, leading mobile operator Advanced Info Service (AIS) said in its statement that it has no policy to send SMS texts to customers, asking for personal data or financial transaction.
The statement came after the company received a complaint about the message embedded with malicious links from the sender named “Serenade”.
Saichon Submakudom, head of Public Relations at AIS said the investigation found the SMS was sent by a DTAC user, so it stopped the SMS service, provided to the user and will take a legal action against the sender. (TNA)
