Hackers Nearly Get Away with $491,000 from Small Florida Town’s Bank A/C

Cyber-criminals attacked Orange Park a small town in Florida, USA while trying to flee with almost one-half million USD, published firstcoastnews.com dated March 9, 2015.

In the words of Jim Hanson Town Manager, the thieves by hacking into a PC of the town, managed to steal the cash from an account at the Wells Fargo banking institution situated there, reported firstcoastnews.com.

Fortunately, the stolen cash has been retrieved although detention of any person hasn't been done.

Wells Fargo has sought Federal Bureau of Investigation's service for conducting an investigation into the whole incident.

Hanson explains, through wire-transfer the thieves transferred the amount from Wells Fargo to a different bank in not even 30-minutes.

The theft occurred on 13th February a Friday when the miscreants swiped about $491,000 out of Orange Park's bank account.

Hansen elaborated that the hackers infiltrated the e-mail A/C of a staff member and dispatched attachments loaded with PC-virus to top officials.

According to him, many of the bank's employees clicked on the attachments that they should've ignored.

The virus proliferated fast enabling the hackers to acquire admission into the bank account of Wells Fargo in Orange Park.

When staff of the Town Manager's office discovered the infection they notified the bank over telephone, Hanson remembered.

Orange Park's leaders rode the tight rope that whole weekend, assuming they'd intercepted the transaction before it became too late.

Elsewhere Hanson added that initially the bank officials were optimistic that they'd manage in reversing the wire-transfer as his office had notified them fast. Jacksonville.com reported this, March 11, 2015.

According to Hanson, there was an insurance coverage for the town which would've arrested any losses; however, the scare wasn't any less due to that.

Lesson learnt: employees required being trained not to ever view an e-mail attachment till of course it was expected, no matter whether the sender was a known person for there could be harmful content inside it, Hanson said.

He assured the hackers didn't get any info regarding commercial/residential/business clients' deals with Orange Park.

And while fresh security measures have been put up to protect the town's computers, Hanson wouldn't disclose any.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/21/2015