KT

Bangalore, Dec 16: The cyber crime wing of the Bangalore police have arrested a man, who had allegedly siphoned off large sums of money from online bank accounts of several people after stealing data from computers they had used at cyber cafes.

Karnataka's director general of police (Corps of Detectives) Ajai Kumar Singh told reporters that the accused Joseph, 27, a diploma holder in computer science, had hacked into the accounts of 17 unsuspecting bank customers and transferred large sums of money to the accounts of his accomplices.

According to information available with the police so far, Joseph and his accomplices had defrauded a minimum of one million rupees.

The police had found more than 100 bank account numbers, their passwords and other details from three e-mail accounts operated by Joseph. The banks had confirmed the authenticity of 70 accounts and the passwords that were found in the Joseph's possession.

The accused used to operate from four cyber cafes in Bangalore and one in Mysore near here. He used to install the freely available Keylogger, the keystroke recording software that captures data of subsequent users of the computer. All the victims had accessed their accounts from the cyber cafes, leaving a trail for Joseph.

Apart from transferring money from the victims' accounts to the accounts of his accomplices, Joseph also approached cell phone users in Karnataka, Kerala and Mumbai and offered them currency recharge at huge discounts. They provided the cell phone numbers to Joseph, who recharged them by hacking into the bank accounts of his victims and transferring the funds online.

The racket came to light after a complaint by Carl Braganza with the cyber wing in October.
 
Agency report

The police succeeded in unearthing the fraud when they arrested the mastermind, Joseph, from a city cyber cafe which he had been frequenting, on the basis of a complaint from Carl Braganza, HR Manager of Analog Infotech India Ltd.
He had stated that he had been defrauded to the tune of Rs 1.27 lac by some unidentified hackers, according to a release from CoD (Corps of Detectives), Economic Offences.

Joseph, a diploma-holder in computer science, hailing from Virudanagar district in Tamil Nadu used to hack into accounts of persons using "key logger" software.

From the available e-mail accounts of Joseph, more than 100 bank account numbers, passwords and other details of individuals have been obtained.

HDFC Bank, Citi Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Banks have confirmed the authenticity of about 70 existing accounts and passwords gathered by CoD officers from Jospehs's e-mail accounts.

Investigation revealed that out of 70 accounts, 17 have already been successfully hacked by Joseph with the help of his associates. Police have succeeded in solving seven cases out of the 17, involving illegal transfer of funds to the tune of Rs seven lakh and further investigation was on.
Joseph's 11 associates also have been arrested.