Criminals have stolen the funds by cloning customer debit cards and then cashing out user funds across Brazil, despite the original cards being protected by EMV (chip-and-PIN) technology. To clone a modern chip-and-PIN card, criminals just need is a copy of a legitimate EMV cards magnetic strip. To obtain such information, criminals often rely on card sniffing devices installed on ATMs or POS terminals, which are also suspected as the primary sources for the debit cards used in the recent OLB incident.
The incident happened at the end of August 2019, and caught the eye of several cyber-security experts who noted the peculiarities of the thefts, which only involved Mastercard debit cards issued by German bank Oldenburgische Landesbank (OLB).
In a statement released following the incident, on Friday, August 27, 2019, the German bank said that only 2,000 customers were impacted, and that they already refunded all affected customers. Moreover, the bank also moved in to block all Mastercard debit cards following the attack, and is now in the process of issuing replacements.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now
We welcome comments that add value to the discussion. We attempt to block comments that use offensive language or appear to be spam, and our editors frequently review the comments to ensure they are appropriate. If you see a comment that you believe is inappropriate to the discussion, you can bring it to our attention by using the report abuse links. As the comments are written and submitted by visitors of the The Paypers website, they in no way represent the opinion of The Paypers.