400 Agribank accounts hacked, many people lost money overnight.
More than 10 officials and employees of the People's Television Channel had money withdrawn from their Agribank bank accounts, with amounts ranging from 10 to 24 million VND per person. They are among the 400 people whose accounts were hacked.
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Ms. Mai Huyen, an employee of the People's Television Channel (Hang Trong, Hanoi), said that her deposit account and those of nearly 10 colleagues at the agency had just had their payment deposits withdrawn at the Agricultural and Rural Development Bank (Agribank).
The incident began late on the evening of April 25th when Huyen's colleagues at People's Television received text messages reporting that money was being continuously withdrawn from their accounts despite them not making any transactions. The victims immediately reported the matter to the authorities and contacted Agribank to freeze their accounts.
By 10 PM on April 25th, Agribank confirmed that it had frozen all accounts of the staff and employees of the People's Television channel to ensure security.
However, at 11:30 PM, Ms. Huyen's account showed that money had been withdrawn. In just 6 minutes, from 11:30 PM to 11:36 PM, Ms. Huyen's account was debited 8 times, resulting in a total loss of 24 million VND.
Because Ms. Huyen's account at Agribank had a daily withdrawal limit of 25 million VND, the hacker couldn't continue withdrawing money. To ensure the remaining funds weren't lost, Ms. Huyen had to wait until after midnight to withdraw the rest of the money from her account at nearby ATMs.
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| Consecutive balance change notifications are sent to the cardholder's phone number. |
"I was very surprised that even after the bank confirmed the account was frozen, money was still being withdrawn. I was still able to withdraw money until the early morning of April 26th. This means the bank's account freezing process wasn't complete yet. Luckily, I was able to withdraw the remaining money in my account," Ms. Huyen shared.
After withdrawing the money, Ms. Huyen informed her colleagues at the office. Many others immediately went to withdraw money as well.
The withdrawal transactions from these cards only stopped at 3:15 AM on April 26th. In some cases, the bank cards were swallowed by ATMs.
Therefore, the bank blocked the card approximately 5 hours later than the confirmation given to the customer.
During the exchange, representatives from Agribank stated that on the morning of April 26th, the bank held a meeting with the individuals who lost money and committed to reimbursing the previously withdrawn funds.
The bank also explained that although they had notified customers to block their accounts, money was still lost because a relatively large number of cards were hacked (around 400 people), and they couldn't react quickly enough.
