Thursday, 24 August, 2000, 20:17 GMT 21:17 UK
Egg fraud fears grow
Egg has lost of tens of thousands of pounds in
an alleged fraud at the internet bank, sources
close to the investigation have told the BBC.
Sources told the Nine O'Clock news that the
fraud extracted "substantial amounts" of
money.
But Egg continues to insist that the fraudsters,
who attempted to establish bogus accounts,
only stole a nominal amount of money from the
bank, in which Prudential has a majority stake.
The news raises fresh fears about online
security and comes as the National Crime
Squad decides to widen its probe into fraud at
internet banks.
Multiple applications
The alleged fraud was a simple deception using
fake names and addresses on multiple
applications for savings accounts and loans.
Egg has admitted that some cards were
issued.
Egg, which has 1.1 million customers, stressed
that no money was stolen from individual
accounts, and that none of its computer or
security systems had been breached.
"In no way have any of our customers
suffered," Gary Clifton-Marshall, the bank's
operations director, said.
All banks, not just internet ones, faced the
same level of security risks in such cases, Egg
claims.
It was advanced software which can spot
multiple applications coming from the same
computer, and which Egg installed two months
ago, which had led to the arrests on
Wednesday, the bank added.
On Wednesday, three men were released on
police bail after being arrested by officers
investigating the break-in.
The men were arrested in dawn raids by
officers of the National Crime Squad on seven
homes around Milton Keynes following a six
month investigation into internet fraud at Egg.
The men were released without charge.
Other banks at risk
The National Crime
Squad confirmed that
other internet banks
may also have been targeted.
An NCS spokeswoman said the possibility of
attacks on other online banks came to light
after studying the arrested men's computers.
There have been a string of security concerns
about internet banking in the UK.
Last month Barclays temporarily shut its
internet banking service after a fault in new
software allowed some users to see other
customers' accounts.
This is a very interesting story since a couple PR releases have stated the
following:
http://financialnews.netscape.com/financialnews/News.tibco?story=NEWS.BW.20000824.2158&symbols=PRDS&view=story&company=PRDS
Might have to revise the statements until the truth is out.. :)
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