Polish hackers “defraud Internet bank clients”

Warsaw (dpa) – A gang of Polish hackers fraudulently obtained almost 1 mln zloty (309,000 dollars) from Polish bank clients doing their banking over the internet, Poland’s RMF Radio station reported.

Police in the southern city of Krakow say the gang developed a highly effective strategy to defraud bank clients using the internet to make payments from their accounts.

First they would infect computers with viruses which would be activated when a user would write the word bank” in a search engine.

The virus would then register all keyboard and mouse activity and automatically send the information to the email accounts of the hackers who could decipher confidential account information, including access and PIN codes.

They were then able to clear out accounts with a mere click of the mouse.

A spokesperson for the Polish Bankers Union said clients using internet banking can best protect themselves by avoiding using search engines to look for the bank website and instead writing the banks address themselves directly into the web-browser.

Internet bank clients should not provide personal details in answer to emails apparently sent by their bank, he said.

Banks are, however, ultimately responsible for re-paying client any money hackers steal from their accounts, he stressed.