South African ‘hacker’ arrested for fraud

A massive online banking fraud in South Africa is being unravelled by law enforcement there. The organised crime squad in South Africa, the Scorpions, recently arrested what they believe to be a minor yet significant member of a gang using computers in internet cafés to defraud banking customers. According to news reports, the 28-year-old has been charged with 120 counts of online fraud.

Using spyware software, according to authorities the man was able to take the details of personal banking transactions from computers, transfer them through a file server in Estonia, then retrieve them and use them to log into internet accounts.

In conjunction with Standard Bank and a UK-based security consultancy, the South African authorities are now set to head after the ‘big guys’, according to advocate Gerhard Nel of the Scorpions.

Incidents have to date been reported in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.

All of South Africa’s large banking institutions have been affected, according to press reports.

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