Taiwanese man accused of massive internet fraud

MORE THAN 100,000 numbers and personal codes for internet banking and auction-site users may have been stolen by hackers from across the Taiwan Strait, according to a report in today's Taipei Times.

A Taiwanese man was arrested yesterday by the Criminal Investigation Bureau. The 30 year old man, named Chen Chung-shun, is alleged to have stolen an enormous e-truckload of confidential data, including almost 200,000 bank and auction-site account numbers along with their codes. He's also alleged to have grabbed a staggering 45 million> e-mail addresses, as well as information from major bank accounts.

It is alleged that Chen was in cahoots with Chinese hackers since February, aiming to steal bank codes by chucking shell Trojans all over customers computers. Chen, it's alleged, transferred about 100,000 accounts and codes to the Chinese hackers, but had no backup copies of them in his database.

Chen was allegedly nicking the bank codes by sending Trojans via the 45 million addresses he collected By March this year he is alleged to have sent at least 18 million e-mails.

The stolen bank codes were, it's alleged, used by Chen to transfer money on to other accounts. It's expected that the fraudulent circle stole at least several million NT dollars, but the true extent of the theft is unknown. The ring apparently withdrew money from the International Commercial Bank of China ATM machines, over in China.

Officials said that the bank accounts tampered with were saving accounts, which held funds of over US$5.9 million. µ

L'INQ
Taipei Times