 |
| (pc-google images) |
A Ukrainian bank has now fallen prey to the widespread cyber attack on banking and financial sectors by hackers who have reportedly stolen $10 million from it.
According to reports emerging from the region citing an independent IT monitoring organisation called the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), hackers have exploited the Swift messaging system.
"At the current moment, dozens of banks (mostly in Ukraine and Russia) have been compromised, from which has been stolen hundreds of millions of dollars," a member of the ISACA reportedly said in a press release.
The hackers have already made a number of victims, including Bangladesh central bank, the Banco del Austro (BDA) bank in Ecuador and an unnamed commercial bank. In February, cybercriminals accessed the central bank of Bangladesh and made 35 transfer requests totalling $951 million to its account with the New York Federal Reserve. Ecuadorian bank call BANCO del Austro lost about $12 million in the cyber heist carried out at the beginning of last year by attacking the Swift global network.
The chief executive of Swift, Gottfried Leibbrandt has warned that banks need to tighten security or risk suspension from the global collective – which has come under increasing strain since the hacks began.
Speaking to The Financial Times, he said: "We could say that if the immediate security around Swift is not in order we could cut you off, you shouldn't be on the network [...] the days when you needed to break into a bank and carry guns and blow torches are over. You can now rob a bank from just your own PC and that does change the game completely."
The recently attacked bank in question had not yet been named, as investigators are restricted by strict non-disclosure agreements until the firm itself agrees to go public with information.
According to sources "SWIFT network has neither been ‘hacked’ nor ‘attacked’ as part of any of the recently reported cyber incidents. The attackers compromised the banks’ environments, whilst the banks’ access to the SWIFT network was simply used as a way to execute the theft – something that would not have been possible had the banks’ environments not been compromised".
