Pakistan denies mass bank data breach, reports card-skimming

Pakistan's central bank rushed on Tuesday to reassure investors and consumers that its banking system had not been hacked after a mass skimming operation hit customers' credit and debit cards.

The skimming took details of nearly 20,000 debit and credit cards from 22 Pakistani banks, according to the Pakistan Computer Emergency Response Team (PakCERT), a monitoring group.

It was not immediately clear how much money was stolen using the cards, beyond an initial report of about US$20,000. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Tuesday it had already instructed all banks to increase their scrutiny after one lender reported the problem last week, but stressed that the banks themselves were not hacked.