Southwark Crown Court heard that the malware / phishing case centres around the use of a sophisticated trojan horse application that routed internet users to a fake Natwest banking website.

The phishing site appears to have gatewayed into the legitimate Natwest banking portal, but at the same time giving the fraudsters access to the users bank accounts, allowing them to siphon off large sums of money.

According to newspaper reports, police have recovered just under 25% of the £600 000 allegedly removed through the phishing attack without authorisation from 138 compromised bank accounts.

Reports suggest that the fraudulent Natwest phishing website required users to hand over their phone numbers, passwords and payment card PINs as part of a`security check.'

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the case is expected to last around two weeks.