A NEWS report on Tuesday said private banks are yet to install anti-skimming devices in their ATMs to defeat any move to steal cash by breaking the identity of users credit cards. We know that the Central Bank has asked all private commercial banks to install the anti-skimming devices following the stealing of over Tk 20 lakhs from several ATM booths of four commercial banks in early February this year. Cyber thieves broke the secrets of the credit cards putting a skimming device in the taller machine on that occasion. They copied the secret personal information number (PIN) of the cardholders and then created duplicate cards and used them to withdraw money from the ATM while the actual cardholders remained uninformed. The disclosure has already made the e-banking highly vulnerable using ATM facilities in street corners. Banks have been therefore asked to put the anti-skimming device to ensure security of all taller machines against cyber theft. We are appalled by the disclosure that most banks are yet to install the device at their ATMs, apparently not paying serious attention to the measure. We know that the cost of the new technology is not too much and whatever be that the most important thing is that depositors’ money in the banks must be protected at any cost. The consequences of such neglect may be easily figured out from the big money heist that hackers had committed recently from Bangladesh Bank’s account with Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Neglect and lack of operational safety at the Central Bank caused the Central Bank to lose US$ 101 million while it overcame the bigger risk of losing around US$ 1.0 billion on the occasion that hackers had only narrowly missed. Amidst such background, Bangladesh Bank asked all banks on February 15 to install the anti-skimming devices in their ATMs in one month time. But lack of progress in this respect is quite unjustified and upsetting as the continued vulnerability may probe quite catastrophic again any time. It is unthinkable that cyber thieves were able to break the highly secretive information on SWIFT machine, which gives foolproof protection to global money transfer from one bank to another. Nobody can ignore the technological risk now and we must say all banks must quickly install the anti-skimming device in their ATMs before such incident repeats itself again. The BB order is mandatory to all banks, because technology based money heist works unnoticed while perpetrators can rob the cash and spend it locally or move out it to any other destination.
