DUBAI: Online hacking has claimed yet another victim with a Dubai resident losing her savings of Dh12,000 from her bank in a matter of minutes.
And she claims the bank did not act fast enough, which could have helped prevent the heist.
On August 20, at around 1.30pm, Kathryn Magadia, a 28-year-old Filipino document controller, received an SMS that a single transaction made on her bank account without her authorisation left her with just Dh5.
Within minutes she was on the phone with the bank's call centre staff trying to stop the transaction, but it was too late. Magadia reported the matter to the police immediately.
She said Emirates NBD took three weeks to respond to her request for a certificate about the illegal transfer. She said police needed that document to open a case.
Magadia fears the suspect, an African man who is also a customer with the same bank, may have already slipped out of the country.
No clue
"That money is my savings. The Dubai Police have been very supportive. But my bank account and ATM card are both blocked and I have no idea when the money will be returned to me."
A bank spokesperson confirmed the hacking incident and said: "We [are] going through with the process of complaint resolution, after necessary investigation and completion of required documentation."
She said complaints are thoroughly investigated and a resolution is arrived at depending on the nature of the complaint.
The incident is the latest in the rising trend of white-collar online crime in the country.
The UAE's National Computer Emergency Response Team reported that hacking incidents surged more than 500 per cent in 2010. Internet security company Trend Micro confirmed the worrying trend, stating that up to 80 million spam or phishing e-mails targeted users in the UAE last year alone.
A recent Norton-Symantec survey shows that at least two people fall victim to cyber criminals in the UAE every minute.
The US-based company reckons that UAE customers have lost more than Dh775 million in direct cash cost from February 2010 to March 2011, the period covered by the survey.
- 1.4 million, the number of hacking victims in the UAE over 12 months
- 2.5 million online users in the UAE
- 72 per cent of adults in the UAE have been victims of cyber crime
