A Texas bank is suing a customer hit by an $800,000 cybertheft incident in a
case that could test the extent to which customers should be held responsible
for protecting their online accounts from compromises.
The incident, which was first reported by blogger Brian Krebs this week,
involves Lubbock-based PlainsCapital bank and its customer Hillary Machinery Inc.
of Plano.
In November, unknown attackers based in Romania and Italy initiated a series
of unauthorized wire transfers from Hillary's bank accounts and depleted it by
$801,495. About $600,000 of the amount was later recovered by PlainsCapital.
Hillary demanded that the bank repay it the rest of the stolen money. In a
letter to the bank in December, Hillary claimed that the theft happened only
because PlainsCapital had failed to implement adequate security measures.
