Bank heists: the next wave

From the AP:

Officials from the Duanesburg Central School District in Schenectady County on Jan. 5 announced computer hackers had drained about $3 million from a district bank account over several days in December.

According to the district's Web site, bank officials contacted the district Dec. 22 to question a request for an electronic transfer of $759,000 to multiple overseas accounts. The bank canceled the pending transaction, but officials dug deeper and discovered an additional $3 million in unauthorized transfers were executed before Dec. 22.

The FBI and state police were called in, and district officials said they were able to recover $2.5 million of the stolen funds with the help of several overseas financial institutions. To prevent further problems, district officials closed all the school system's bank accounts and established new ones with restricted online access.

There are literally thousands and thousands of vulnerable accounts.

At some point, the world is going to have to get very serious about electronic security. And that's going to have to include going after the perpetrators of thefts like these in a very aggressive way.