A resident of Singapore faced an annoying attack of carders who tried to make transactions over and over again even after 47-year-old Zena Lim (Zena Lim) received plastic with one new number, and then with another and another with another. Journalists from The Straits Times found that in total she was debited six times from four different accounts at UOB Bank.
In April 2023, the first two transactions for $1,060 were made. They paid for the services of Air Asia. The next attempts with the new plastic were made in May and June, and again it was about Air Asia.
“It's very annoying. How can the same merchant charge three different card numbers for almost two months without requiring authentication?” Lim was surprised.
The publication notes that Dr. Lim's case comes amid a growing number of reports from credit and debit card holders in Singapore and abroad who find that their plastic data has been fraudulently used to purchase services from various goods and services providers, including Open AI and Apple.
In total, they tried to write off about $ 3,600 from Lim's account for all this time. All of these payments were ultimately blocked by the UOB. However, the very method of gaining access from the outside to different cards attached to different personal accounts remained a mystery to everyone.
The Acronis company, to whose representatives the journalists turned for comments, called this case rare. They noted that if cybercriminals had stolen the details of her first card, they would still need to hack the next card without triggering banking fraud prevention systems. Information security specialists did not rule out that Lim's cards were used without her knowledge by someone who has physical access to plastic or banking applications on the doctor's smartphone, that is, her acquaintance.
“We cannot rule out that this is just an internal failure in one of the companies or the influence of a human factor in AirAsia, the bank or the postal service that sent the new cards. In addition, it is possible that there may be some gaps in this story that we do not know about, ”concluded Candid Wuest, vice president of cyber defense research at Acronis.
In April 2023, the first two transactions for $1,060 were made. They paid for the services of Air Asia. The next attempts with the new plastic were made in May and June, and again it was about Air Asia.
“It's very annoying. How can the same merchant charge three different card numbers for almost two months without requiring authentication?” Lim was surprised.
The publication notes that Dr. Lim's case comes amid a growing number of reports from credit and debit card holders in Singapore and abroad who find that their plastic data has been fraudulently used to purchase services from various goods and services providers, including Open AI and Apple.
In total, they tried to write off about $ 3,600 from Lim's account for all this time. All of these payments were ultimately blocked by the UOB. However, the very method of gaining access from the outside to different cards attached to different personal accounts remained a mystery to everyone.
The Acronis company, to whose representatives the journalists turned for comments, called this case rare. They noted that if cybercriminals had stolen the details of her first card, they would still need to hack the next card without triggering banking fraud prevention systems. Information security specialists did not rule out that Lim's cards were used without her knowledge by someone who has physical access to plastic or banking applications on the doctor's smartphone, that is, her acquaintance.
“We cannot rule out that this is just an internal failure in one of the companies or the influence of a human factor in AirAsia, the bank or the postal service that sent the new cards. In addition, it is possible that there may be some gaps in this story that we do not know about, ”concluded Candid Wuest, vice president of cyber defense research at Acronis.
