Australian Bank Accused Of Allowing Massive Internet Fraud
from the that-doesn't-look-good dept
Unfortunately, the details aren't entirely clear, but a report out of Australia from someone says that his account at the Commonwealth Bank was hacked, and that the bank later admitted that this happens "hundreds of times a week." In response to the charges, the bank responded by saying that their systems were designed to watch for likely fraud and that they caught it before funds were lost 99.5% of the time. That has to be one of the least comforting statements you could hear from your bank concerning fraud. Basically, they're admitting that hundreds of scammers get into accounts, but that their system only then protects the accounts most of the time. Shouldn't they be working on keeping the scammers out altogether rather than on waiting until they've already made it through? The actual scam in question is not clearly explained. While the say some of the scams involve phishing, this one apparently involved his info being "retrieved from Web cookies," which sounds questionable. It also involved the increasingly popular "middleman" system by which scammers try to stay even further hidden by supposedly "hiring" an innocent person to transfer money for them.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team