Last weekend, Citibank Korea, a South Korean subsidiary of Citigroup, was hit by illegal ATM withdrawals. According to sources, information on 2,500 Card accounts were leaked, which resulted in illegal ATM withdrawals in Thailand.
The exact amount of illegal ATM withdrawals is unknown, but it has been confirmed that scores of illegal ATM withdrawals were made in Thailand.
Last month, some Citibank ATMs installed at convenience stores and supermarkets, suffered malware attacks, consequently leaking card information. At that time, financial authorities informed Korean credit card companies of the attacks and demanded that Citibank take action to contain the damage. Citibank take actions including suspension of transactions upon the customers’ consents and risk of transactions.
Citibank Korea belatedly disabled the affected cards for overseas usage and said it would compensate the victims for their loss within this week.
However, as Citibank Korea’s inaction on the data leak led to illegal cash withdrawals, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) plans to investigate why Citibank failed to step up its protection systems from the ground up as previously advised.