Inside job not likely in 'Mark Nagoyo' hacking incident —NBI exec

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday said it is "not inclined to believe" that an insider was involved in the "Mark Nagoyo" hacking incident that involved two banks.

"Sa experience namin atsaka at the same time dun sa behavior ng incident, kung paano nila in-execute, we are not inclined to believe na may insider, kasi hindi na rin kailangan eh," said Vic Lorenzo, head of the NBI's Cybercrime Division, in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB.

(Based on our experience and on the behavior of the incident, on how it was executed, we are not inclined to believe that there is an insider, because there was actually no need for one.)

The "Mark Nagoyo" hacking incident refers to the unauthorized transfer of funds from unsuspecting BDO Unibank Inc. account holders to a fictitious bank account with UnionBank.

Lorenzo said the hackers may have gotten the pertinent information from the victims not through an insider but through "phishing," a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data.

"Tinitignan namin yung mga na-compromise na account... nakikita namin in all probability parang na-phish pa rin [We are looking at the compromised accounts, and we are seeing that in all probability there were victims of phishing]," he said.

Though investigators are not discounting the possibility that foreigners were involved, Lorenzo said they believe the perpetrators were likely local.

Union Bank of the Philippines on Wednesday said it has identified at least six personalities behind the hacking incident.

BDO, on the other hand, has started processing the reimbursement of close to 700 clients affected by the hacking.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), for its part, has formed a task force to investigate the incident. The task force was given 30 days to come up with a recommendation regarding possible sanctions and penalties.

Lorenzo, meanwhile, urged users to still use online transactions.

"Huwag tayong matakot na mag-online transaction kasi kung iko-compare yung fraudulent transactions with successful transactions, negligible siya," he said.

(Let us not be afraid to use online transactions because when we compare the number of fraudulent transactions with successful transactions, we'll see that it's negligible.) —KBK, GMA News