Another Company Sues Their Bank Over Internet Losses From Malware and Cyber Criminals
Patco, a Sanford, Maine-based construction company, had its corporate bank account taken over by cyber criminals last May, resulting in unauthorized funds transfers of over $588,000. The funds were sent to dozens of money mules throughout the country, who then forwarded the funds overseas.
Patco has sued their bank, Ocean bank of Portsmouth, NH, for failing to detect and prevent the fraudulent losses.
It’s most likely that Patco computers got infected by the Zeus banking trojan malware, or some other similar crimeware. This allowed the criminals to sniff the usernames and passwords of the employees at Patco who did their corporate online banking. The criminals then logged in to Patco’s accounts and initiated over half a million dollars in fraudulent funds transfers.
Patco is arguing that the bank did not take reasonable precautions. The bank is arguing that their systems were secure, and that the computers of Patco employees were infected with malware, resulting in the losses.