SENATOR Grace S. Poe raised an alert last Tuesday amid reports indicating an uptick in recent attempts to hack bank deposits through the Internet.
This as Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions, reminded concerned authorities that more people turning to online transactions in the midst of a pandemic “should not drive the uptick in hacking activities and other attempts at digital thievery.”
In a statement, the solon conveyed the consensus of senators sitting in the committee they expect banks and concerned financial institutions to ‘fortify their systems to thwart emboldened threats and security breaches.”
Poe emphasized that “intensified collaboration” is “crucial among the government, banks and our people in taking the necessary measures to protect financial consumers from becoming victims of these cybercrimes.”
Reminding that “our people’s hard-earned money entrusted in banks must at all times be secure,” the senator is asking the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to furnish the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies copies of the results of its investigation including the recent BDO Unibank incident.
During the Senate Committee hearing Last January 17, BSP Director Melchor T. Plabasan assured they intend to render their report to the Monetary Board before the end of January.
According to Plabasan, they could not as yet divulge what really happened in the incident, explaining it was “complex and requires a cyber-forensic investigation.”
Reimbursements, arrests
PLABASAN also told members of the Committee chaired by Poe that most of the 700 compromised accounts were “restituted” or “already reimbursed.” BDO had outright promised, as soon as the hacking was reported, that bank account holders victimized through no fault of their own–or did not do anything and yet simply lost their monies–will be promptly restituted.
The BSP official also recalled that at a hearing last December, they were told there were account holders at BDO “where funds were withdrawn and transferred to the account of a certain ‘Mark Nagoyo’ at Union Bank [of the Philippines].”
According to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), their arrest of several individuals last January 21 revealed that “Mark Nagoyo” is not one individual but refers to a “heist group.”
Last week, the NBI announced the arrest of five people who, they said, were members of the “Mark Nagoyo Heist Group.” The NBI said also arrested were two Nigerian nationals.
At a news briefing, NBI Officer-in-Charge Eric B. Distor identified the suspects as Ifesinachi Chukwuemeka Peter Nwadi, Fountain Anaekwe, (alias Daddy Champ), Jherom Anthony Taupa, Ronelyn Panaligan and Clay Revillosa.
They were arrested in simultaneous operations in Pampanga last January 18 by operatives of the NBI’s Cybercrime Division (NBI-CCD).
Taupa, who is believed to be one of the masterminds of the Nagoyo Heist Group, was arrested in an entrapment conducted on January 18 in Floridablanca, Pampanga. With an additional report by Joel San Juan