Most likely the reason is because RBS issued their press release concerning the breach during the busy Christmas season, December 23rd of 2008.
To read about what I thought about it then, visit "Mother of All Hacks Coming? from December 24th.
This incident happened after midnight on November 8th. Now...I know how they got the PINs, (here's a hint, you're on candid camera), so the most intriguing part of this story, at least in my opinion, is the fact that the hackers were able to lift the daily limits on the cards, providing a larger payday. That's was the coup de' tat.
The coordination and scope of this effort is also amazing even causing the FBI to make comments to that effect. 130 different ATM machines in 49 cities with 100 cards in 30 minutes.
The incident took 30 minutes to pull off, but it's been over two years before they finally arrested the suspected culprit behind the heist. Finextra is reporting this morning that the the perpetrator of this heist has been arrested in Russia. Click the link below to see a Fox News Report on the RBS WorldPay ATM Heist.
Finextra: Russia arrests RBS WorldPay ATM heist suspect: Russian authorities have arrested the alleged mastermind behind the 2008 cyber-attack on RBS WorldPay's computer network, which lead to the theft of over $9 million, according to the Financial Times. Viktor Pleshchuk, who was one of eight suspects from Eastern Europe named in a US federal grand jury indictment last year, has been detained by the the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), along with "several" other people, says the paper. US authorities believe Pleshchuk and Estonian Sergei Tsurikov were the ringleaders behind the attack, which compromised the encryption used by the processor to protect customer data on payroll debit cards. This allowed the gang to raise the limits on accounts before handing over 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards to a network of "cashers" who withdrew over $9 million in less than 12 hours from more than 2100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide, including in the US, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada.
