KARACHI: Amid cyberattacks on Pakistani banks, many account holders are cancelling their debit and credit cards to avoid becoming victims of cybercrime.
“I’ve closed my online account because of ongoing cyberattacks,” businessman Abdul Samad Memon told Arab News on Wednesday. “The banks aren’t sharing details of what’s happening.”
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) recently seized the bank account of an ice-cream vendor that contained 2.25 billion Pakistani rupees ($16.84 million). And on Oct. 27, Bank Islami reported that its IT security had been breached.
On Monday, local media reported the FIA’s cybercrime chief, Mohammad Shoaib, as saying customers’ data from almost every major Pakistani bank had been stolen in a recent security breach.
But the State Bank of Pakistan said there is “no evidence” to support Shoaib’s claim, and data from only one bank had been compromised.
On Oct. 26, the Pakistan Computer Emergency Response Team (PakCERT), a cybersecurity services provider, reported a data dump on the dark web from more than 9,000 debit cards, of which 8,864 belonged to customers of Pakistani banks.
The compromised cards were sold for $100-$160, PakCERT said, adding that there was a second dump on Oct. 31 from more than 12,000 cards, 11,000 of them from Pakistani banks. A total of 19,864 cards were compromised from 22 Pakistani banks, it said.
Experts say the breaches were well organized. “The pattern of infiltration clearly shows that more than one entity was involved,” said financial and banking technologist S. M. Arif. “The withdrawals have taken place through financial systems, which means it’s a failure of multiple entities at multiple points.”
Banker A. B. Shahid told Arab News: “Customers believed that the banking systems were reliable and secure, but their confidence has been shaken.”
In the rush to promote electronic banking in Pakistan, banks had failed to take steps to install anti-hacking systems, he said. It will take banks several weeks to come up with a solution to online fraud, he added.
Memon said: “Previously we were victims of armed gangs, but now we’re facing online gangs that are bent on robbing us.”
Pakistanis close bank accounts to avoid cybercrime
Pakistanis close bank accounts to avoid cybercrime
- Memon said: Previously we were victims of armed gangs, but now we’re facing online gangs that are bent on robbing us
Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company
- It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
WASHINGTON: An Iran-linked hacking group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a sweeping cyberattack on US medical technology giant Stryker, saying it had wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.
“Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it called “the brutal attack on the Minab school” and for “ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance.”
The group said it had shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”
It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Stryker is a global medical device giant with some 56,000 employees and $25.12 billion in 2025 revenues, making everything from orthopedic implants and surgical instruments to hospital beds and robotic surgery systems.
The Handala group later posted that it had also carried out an attack on Verifone, which specializes in electronic and point-of-sale payments.
The outages began shortly after 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Windows devices — including laptops and mobile phones connected to Stryker’s networks — were remotely wiped.
