Mahesh Bank hacking: Hyderabad police spent Rs 58L on investigation; arrest 23

Hyderabad: Police have spent Rs 58 lakh to probe AP Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank server hacking. Hyderabad Commissioner of Police CV Anand said more than 100 police officers traveled across the country for more than two months.

Police achieved significant progress and arrested f 23 accused including four Nigerians. Two months before, hackers broke into the servers of the A. P Mahesh Co-operative Urban Bank and fraudulently transferred Rs 12.48 crore.

Anand said police are determined to take the case to a logical conclusion so that people know all the details.

"Police worked hard for two months to solve this case. More than 100 officers visited almost every state in India as part of the investigations. Police have so far spent Rs 58 lakh on the case. Perhaps this is the highest amount spent on a case," said Anand.

How server of AP Mahesh Bank was hacked

Anand said the main hacker, who is either sitting in Nigeria or the United Kingdom, sent a phishing mail with the subject-related business to around 200 IDs of the Mahesh Bank in November 2021. Two of the employee of the bank opened that email and due to this trojan software was installed in their system.

That allowed the hackers to successfully establish a network with the bank's computer systems. Afterward, the hackers sent a Key Logger Software and monitored their work. They collected all the details and used them to hack their system.

On January 24, when it was a public holiday, the hackers logged into the network and altered the bank balance in four of the seven accounts they had opened in 2021. The commissioner stated that the money was again transferred from four accounts to 115 different accounts and again to another 398 accounts. A part of the money was withdrawn from a staggering 938 ATMs from across the country.

After the scam broke out, teams were sent to Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, and other North-East states to track the hackers.

The handlers and the account holders were paid a commission of 10 percent by the fraudsters. "The remaining amount was sent to foreign countries through hawala and cryptocurrency," said Anand.

More importantly, due to the police's timely action, another Rs 2.08 crore was saved, while another Rs 1.08 crore was returned to the bank due to incorrect beneficiary details. "The fraudsters managed to siphon off around Rs 9.48 crore," he said.

The commissioner said police made a Mumbai-based company 'Infra Soft Company' as a co-conspirator along with Mahesh Bank. "We sought certain information from Infra Soft Company but they failed to furnish it, which indicates they are hand in glove with the fraudsters," he said.

Police will be writing to Interpol to nab suspects hiding in Nigeria. He said that the police will soon hold a meeting with officials of various banks and explain the need to take precautions to prevent hacking.

Anand added that the banks should have intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems to foil attempts to prevent and detect vulnerability exploits.