Customers’ money is safe, assures Cosmos Bank

PUNE: Cosmos Bank reassured its customers on Tuesday saying their money is safe. Communicating with the customers via SMSes, the bank said all account holders will be able to access their money, digitally, when the systems are restored.
For now, the bank has made enhanced provisions of the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) and Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) payments through branches.The pay-in-slip payments and cheque disbursals will also continue as usual. “The bank will not be operating its ATMs, internet banking and mobile banking services for a few days,” an official at one of the bank’s branches said. He said that the customers can withdraw money or transact from any of the bank branches using the traditional channels.
“It was not an attack on the bank — it was an attack on the banking systems switch. We are trying to create another switch as we do not know if the malware is still present in the system. This is likely to take some time as multiple agencies are involved,” the bank’s chairman Milind Kale said on Tuesday. He said the bank’s core banking systems were never affected. Kale did not comment on if the money will be written-off.
Warning issued in Dec
Payment forensic investigation firm, SISA, had issued an advisory in December 2017 warning of a fraud similar to the one that hit Cosmos Bank. In the advisory, published by TOI on December 20, SISA had asked the banks to reset the passwords of employees who have access to payment systems and use a two-factor authentication for access.