By Muhammad Luqman
Taking notice of the loss of the account holders of Habib Bank Limited, one of the leading banks of Pakistan, Central Bank of Pakistan has ordered for the payment of the loss incurred to the people due to this cyber crime.
According to a spokesman of the State Bank of Pakistan, customers’ information on debit cards of Habib Bank Limited was compromised by hackers through skimming to create its clones and were used to withdraw depositor’s money from various locations within and outside the country.
“ We have asked HBL management to ascertain the losses and return money to the affected customers,” the SBP spokesman said.
HBL has taken several immediate actions to determine and limit the impact of such transactions on customers. Specifically, it blocked all identified debit cards that were suspected to be misused and quarantined the Automated Teller Machines (ATM) used in hacking activity.
Till today, 296 customers have confirmed the disputed transactionsand the estimated damage assessment done to the concerned Bank is Rs10.2 million for their customers, the SBP spokesman added.
HBL has also managed to start returning the money to depositors to the extent of their losses. Meanwhile efforts are underway to determine losses to any other bank’s customers using HBL ATMs and take remedial measures.
ATM skimming — an illegal activity in which account details are stolen from the magnetic strip contained on the back of the debit card has been around for a while and such incidents have happened, sporadically, in Pakistan as well.
Debit cards with a magnetic strip on its back – that stores customer’s account details are particularly vulnerable to skimming and cloning. Debit cards, complying with EMV (EuropayMastercard Visa) standards, featuring a chip and offering two factor authentication are now considered most effective countermeasure for card cloningthrough skimming globally.
Accordingly, SBP vide its circular PSD 05 of 2016 issued regulations for Payment Cards Security wherein banks are required to develop infrastructure for EMV Compliance and issue cards by June 30 2018.
