Hackers Steal Millions From Silk Bank ATMs in Lahore

A group of unidentified men hacked and cleared 14 Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) of Silk Bank in Lahore on 7 February, Monday. Sources confirmed with ProPakistani that the hackers hacked each one of the 14 ATMs on the spot and stole millions in cash. The Cyber Crime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the provincial capital police have commenced investigative proceedings to get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible. To recall, a similar incident took place in November 2021, when hackers stole more than Rs. 5.8 million cash from an ATM of a branch of the National Bank of Pakistan located in Pindi Bhattian, a city of Punjab’s Hafizabad district. Sources at the time said that the cybercriminals used a device to hack the ATM tray that contained the banknotes of Rs. 5,000 denomination and took the entire tray with them. Speaking in this regard, the manager of the bank said that the security guards rushed to the ATM booth as soon as an alert was sent from the ATM to the bank’s head office when it went off after getting hacked. However, it was too late, and the criminals managed to flee before the guards could reach the ATM.