Bhubaneswar, Mar 27: On Feb 25, the branch manager of the Central Bank of India reported at Airfield PS about theft of Rs 10,32,800 from the ATM of Palaspalli. On this report Airfield PS case no 50 dated 25.03.2017 U/S 379 IPC and 66 IT Act was registered and investigated into. Subsequently it came to light that similar types of incidents have also occurred in Kharvela Nagar PS of Bhubaneswar UPD, Lalbag PS of Cuttack UPD and Town PS, Kumbharapada PS of Puri.
In course of investigation, it was ascertained that culprits used to recce the area to identify target ATMs primarily manufactured and supplied by NCR company. Target ATMs work on windows XP operating system. The culprits first install some malware into the system through the USB port and let it to reboot. After that they take screenshot of the ATM and sent it to their partner in remote location to obtain password, when password are entered the ATM dispense currency in high denomination. 
When the investigation was in progress, Commissioner of Police held a meeting with senior officials of the RBI, all the bank and service providers on Mar 5 at Commissionerate headquarters. They were advised to take certain steps immediately like guarding the ATMs, make their control room functional 24/7 and were provide with contact nos of senior police officers in both the UPDs so that they can be informed immediately if any abnormal activities are seen in any ATM. They were also advised to take some technical measures to prevent such types of incidents. Because of all these no further ATM hacking took place in Commissionerate Area.
As this was a new type of cyber offence, two special teams were formed both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack UPD. Millions of call data record were analysed and for the first time ILD (International Long Distance) calls and various apps installed in mobile were analysed to identify the culprits. Raids were conducted in UP, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi and other places. Special team of the capital city apprehended one of the main accused, Ajay Choudhury from Uttarakhand and after thorough examination and investigation he was arrested in connection with Airfield PS case no 50/24.02.2017. He is involved in all the ATM hacking cases in Bhubaneswar UPD, Cuttack UPD and Puri.
