Tesco Plc's banking arm said on Tuesday that 2.5 million pounds ($3 million) had been stolen from 9,000 customers over the weekend in what cyber experts said was the first mass hacking of accounts at a western bank.
Tesco Bank said it had resumed full service after the theft, which forced the suspension of online transactions on Monday.
“We’ve now refunded all customer accounts affected by fraud and lifted the suspension of online debit transactions so that customers can use their accounts as normal," Tesco Bank CEO Benny Higgins said in a statement.
The bank has provided few details about what happened. It is not clear how online thieves broke into the bank, how they pulled out the funds or how much was stolen. It is also not clear if there are any suspects.
SMALLER BANKS AT RISK
Cyber experts said that smaller banks, like Tesco's, are more vulnerable to attack than global financial institutions, which have bigger cyber security budgets.
JPMorgan, for example, has disclosed that it spends about $600 million on cyber security annually.
"Smaller and medium-sized companies may be more vulnerable, many of them have not invested properly in security measures and an incident like this should stimulate them to think again," said Sergio Romanets, cyber security expert at consultant Greyspark Partners in London.
"There is no indication that our software or services were involved in the incident that Tesco Bank experienced over the weekend. Nonetheless, we are offering our support in whatever manner will be helpful to Tesco Bank," a spokeswoman for Fiserv said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
Tesco Bank has spent 500 million pounds ($618.75 million)building up its technology platform over the past seven years since the split with RBS, accounts show.
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