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Journalism of Courage
One of the credit card processing companies whose security was breached in a 45 million global cyber heist was Indias ElectraCard Services,according to two people familiar with the situation.
ElectraCard Services processes prepaid travel cards for National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC RAKB.AD one of two Middle Eastern banks named by US prosecutors on Thursday as victims of the heist,the people said.
The prosecutors said an international criminal gang made two coordinated hits on cash machines around the world,withdrawing 5 million on December 21 last year and a further 40 million on February 19 this year.
The gang was able to make big withdrawals after hacking into an Indian and a US credit card processing company to raise the balances and withdrawal limits on MasterCard prepaid debit cards,the prosecutors said. They did not name the processing companies.
A US official and an employee of RAKBANK in Dubai both said the Indian card processor 8211; used in the heist on December 21,2012 8211; was ElectraCard Services,which is based in Pune,India. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ramesh Mengawade,the CEO of ElectraCard Services and its parent firm,Opus Software Solutions,could not be reached through his executive assistant or through e-mail on Saturday. Calls to the mobile phone of another company official were not answered.
An official at an external public relations firm that works with ElectraCard also said he had not been able to reach Mengawade on Saturday and did not have immediate comment.
RAKBANK has said two of its Prepaid MasterCard Cards have been launched with the support of ElectraCard.
MasterCard bought a 12.5 per cent stake in ElectraCard in 2010,ElectraCard has said. MasterCard has said it had cooperated with law enforcement in the investigation and stressed that its systems were not involved or compromised in the attacks.
Cyber security experts said the global scope and speed of the 45 million bank theft was unprecedented. The global gang had operatives in 27 countries who could fan out to thousands of ATMs in a matter of hours,and withdraw money using fraudulent prepaid debit cards,according to US prosecutors.
