Finns urge better Wi-Fi security after bank break-in
Finland called on its citizens to take more care securing their Wi-Fi networks after it emerged this week that about Euro 200,000 (US$245,400) had been stolen from a local bank using an unprotected home network.
The Helsinki branch of global financing company GE Money called on police to investigate the theft in June. The money, which has since been recovered, was stolen from one of GE Money's accounts at a local bank, said Jukkapekka Risu, investigating officer for the Helsinki police.
Police now believe that the company's 26-year-old head of data security in Helsinki stole banking software from the company along with passwords for its bank account, Risu said. Accomplices then accessed the account from a laptop computer using an unprotected network at a nearby apartment building in Helsinki's Kallio district.
They used the passwords to transfer the money to a different corporate account that they had set up six months earlier, Risu said. The thieves apparently thought that using someone else's Wi-Fi network would help cover their tracks.
Suspicion initially fell on the owner of the Wi-Fi network until police searched his apartment and determined he was not involved. They then deduced from the laptop's MAC address that it belonged to GE Money, and fingers started to point toward the bank's security officer, Risu said. The MAC address had been saved in the wireless LAN's ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) box.
"After a while there were too many leads pointing against him, and after we found the laptop, that was it," he said.
