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Thieves made 14,000 withdrawals in just three hours - 78 a
minute - from bank machines at 7-Eleven convenience stores
across Japan, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Central bank deputy governor Kuben Naidoo told reporters that
Standard Bank would shoulder the losses.
"We are pleased that Standard Bank publicly said what had
happened. We don't know all the details yet but we're looking
into it and we will take all the steps necessary to protect our
payment systems and banking systems from similar types of
attacks," he said.
"We are working with the banks to ensure that they are
constantly upgrading their ability to detect and repel cyber
attacks. But you will always be subjected to these attacks."
Standard Bank said on Monday it had suffered the losses, not its
customers, and that it had alerted the authorities. It estimated
its total loss at 300 million rand ($19 million).
The bank has declined to comment further.
The thieves are still at large. Japan's Mainichi newspaper
citing sources reported that police suspect more than 100 people
were involved in the theft which took place on May 15, a Sunday,
in Tokyo and across 16 prefectures.
Most ATMs in 7-Eleven stores belong to Seven Bank, a Japanese
lender part-owned by Seven & I Holdings which operates the store
chain in Japan. It is one of only two Japanese banks that allow
withdrawals on foreign cards.
Experts said both banks should shoulder some blame for failing
to monitor the flood of transactions, saying they should have
had systems in place to detect unusual activity.
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; writing by James Macharia; editing
by Jason Neely)
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