A man yesterday filed a judicial protest against Banif Bank claiming that a hacker in Malaysia stole €8,000 from his account by transferring the amount to a foreign bank.
Benjamin Curmi, 52, from St Paul’s Bay has asked the Portugal-based bank to refund the money, saying he never authorised the transaction, which took place on June 26 of last year. He warned the next step would be to file for compensation in court.
Banif has rejected any claim of hacking, saying its systems were secure and its controls conformed to the highest international standards.
Contacted by Times of Malta, Mr Curmi yesterday said that the only information he had received so far was through the Malta Financial Services Authority with whom he had immediately filed a complaint.
He said the bank never replied to his questions and was avoiding any attempt at holding a face-to-face meeting.
The case was also being investigated by the police Cyber Crimes Unit who also informed him that the Greater Manchester Police in the United Kingdom had asked to look into the case. The reason was that the money was transferred to a Barclays Bank account.
He said Banif had insisted that this was a case of phishing – the fraudulent practice of sending e-mails purporting to be from a reputable company to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, online.
“Initially the bank told me that the account had been accessed by somebody in Malta,” he said. “At that stage I was rather frightened as I was scared that somebody could have entered my house and stolen confidential information.”
He asked an IT expert to check his personal computer, who ruled out that it had been hacked.
However Mr Curmi said that documents released by the MFSA showed that from an investigation carried out in Portugal by Link Consulting on behalf of the bank, the account had been accessed by somebody whose internet account was traceable to Malaysia.
He added that on the same day this person had accessed three different accounts in the space of seven minutes, between 1.13pm and 1.20pm, and unsuccessfully tried to access a fourth. From this document is seemed that Mr Curmi was the only victim.
From other MFSA documents in his possession it resulted that the bank took six days to ask Barclays to trace the account holder, he said. It later transpired that this account belonged to a Nigerian national by the name of France Odej.
On the other hand, he said, the financial services watchdog found that the bank had adequate safety measures in place. Since then the bank had beefed up security through an electronic device and an SMS service, he added.
The judicial protest was signed by Dr Lorraine Conti.
A Banif Bank spokesman rejected all Mr Curmi’s claims, describing them as unfounded and remarking that the matter had been thoroughly investigated.
The bank said rigorous controls were applied at all times using the highest international standards and that none of its secure systems and infrastructures had been ever hacked.
The spokesman said the bank would not comment further until the proceedings followed their course, saying that it would eventually reply in the appropriate forum.