14 DAY TRIAL // Singapore’s Monetary Authority (MAS) has revealed that the bank statements of some Standard Chartered Bank customers have been stolen by hackers from a third-party service provider.
According to The Guardian, the statements of 647 of the bank’s customers have been found on the laptop of James Raj Arokiasamy, the Singaporean suspected of being the Anonymous hacker known as “The Messiah.”
Raj was arrested in Malaysia in November and handed over to Singapore authorities. He is accused of hacking into a number of websites.
The Standard Chartered Bank data found in his possession is said to have been stolen from the systems of Fuji Xerox, a company that provides printing services to the financial institution. Standard Chartered’s own servers have not been compromised and authorities believe that this is an isolated case.
However, following the incident, the MAS has published an advisory urging banks to make sure that their systems are properly protected against cyber threats.
“MAS has reminded all FIs to heighten their vigilance to safeguard their IT systems and customer information, including controls at third party service providers. MAS is paying special supervisory attention to FIs’ compliance with MAS’ requirements for IT outsourcing,” the organization noted.
The news comes shortly after one of the United States’ largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, started notifying over 460,000 customers that their details might have been stolen by cybercriminals from the company’s UCard website.
These types of cards are used by government agencies and corporations. The number of impacted individuals represents only 2% of the total of 25 million UCard holders.
The attackers had access to the website between July and September. Customer information is encrypted by the bank. However, the attackers might have accessed personal details found in the log files stored on the hijacked server. Law enforcement agencies have been called in to investigate the incident.