The Rakbank and Bank of Muscat faced an international ATM heist recently. The unique feature of this cyber crime was that it is truly international in nature. As a result the investigation authorities around the world had to join hands to trace the cyber criminals. Nine persons have already been arrested in this regard and further investigations are going on.

The cyber criminals first breached the computers at an outsourced Indian credit card processor in December and then the computers of a similar American processor to gain access to critical data that made the crime possible.

India cannot take this issue lightly. As expected the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has already started investigation in this regard. Cert-In is investigating how cyber security at two companies that are part of the country’s vast IT services industry was breached in a global ATM heist that saw $45 million stolen from two banks in the Middle East.

Gulshan Rai, director general of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has informed “We are investigating the technical aspects like what kind of breach has happened in the system, how did it happen, what processes are in place, etc”.

The possible legal recourse for the bankers may include suing the processing companies in court or they could file claims with their insurers and those of the processing companies.