On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 4:56 PM, Nochur Ramanathan < [email protected]> wrote:
> > A spelling mistake in an online bank transfer instruction helped prevent a > nearly $1 billion heist last month involving the Bangladesh central bank > and the New York Federal Reserve, banking officials said. > > Unknown hackers still managed to get away with about $80 million, one of > the largest known bank thefts in history. > > The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and stole its credentials > for payment transfers, two senior officials at the bank said. They then > bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with nearly three dozen > requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank's account there to entities > in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the officials said. > > Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines > went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit > organization was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the > NGO, Shalika Foundation. > > Hackers misspelled "foundation" in the NGO's name as "fandation", > prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the > Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction, one of the > officials said. > > There is no NGO under the name of Shalika Foundation in the list of > registered Sri Lankan non-profits. Reuters could not immediately find > contact information for the organization. > > Deutsche Bank declined to comment. > > At the same time, the unusually large number of payment instructions and > the transfer requests to private entities - as opposed to other banks - > raised suspicions at the Fed, which also alerted the Bangladeshis, the > officials said. > > The details of how the hacking came to light and was stopped before it did > more damage have not been previously reported. Bangladesh Bank has billions > of dollars in a current account with the Fed, which it uses for > international settlements. > > The transactions that were stopped totaled $850-$870 million, one of the > officials said. > > Last year, Russian computer security company Kaspersky Lab said a > multinational gang of cyber criminals had stolen as much as $1 billion from > as many as 100 financial institutions around the world in about two years. > > Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's son Qusay took $1 billion from Iraq's > central bank on the orders of his father on the day before coalition forces > began bombing the country in 2003, American and Iraqi officials have said. > In 2007, guards at the Dar Es Salaam bank in Baghdad made off with $282 > million. > > > > MONEY RECOVERED > > Bangladesh Bank has said it has recovered some of the money that was > stolen, and is working with anti-money laundering authorities in the > Philippines to try to recover the rest. > > A bank spokesman could not be reached for comment late on Thursday. > > The recovered funds refer to the Sri Lanka transfer, which was stopped, > one of the officials said. > > Initially, the Sri Lankan transaction reached Pan Asia Banking Corp > PABC.CM, which went back to Deutsche Bank for more verification because > of the unusually large size of the payment, a Pan Asia official said. "The > transaction was too large for a country like us," the official said. "Then > (Deutsche) came back and said it was a suspect transaction." A Pan Asia > spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. > > The dizzying, global reach of the heist underscores the growing threat of > cyber crime and how hackers can find weak links in even the most secure > computer networks. > > More than a month after the attack, Bangladeshi officials are scrambling > to trace the money, shore up security and identify weaknesses in their > systems. They said there is little hope of ever catching the hackers, and > it could take months before the money is recovered, if at all. > > FireEye Inc's (FEYE.O > <http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FEYE.O>) Mandiant > forensics division is helping investigate the heist, people familiar with > the matter told Reuters on Thursday. > > The sources said Silicon Valley-based FireEye, which has investigated some > of the biggest cyber thefts on record, was brought in by World Informatix, > a smaller firm that is advising Bangladesh Bank on the investigation. > > Security experts said the perpetrators had deep knowledge of the > Bangladeshi institution's internal workings, likely gained by spying on > bank workers. > > The Bangladesh government, meanwhile, is blaming the Fed for not stopping > the transactions earlier. Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith told > reporters on Tuesday that the country may resort to suing the Fed to > recover the money. > > "The Fed must take responsibility," he said. > > The New York Fed has said its systems were not breached, and it has been > working with the Bangladesh central bank since the incident occurred. > > The hacking of Bangladesh Bank happened sometime between Feb. 4-5, over > the Bangladeshi weekend, which falls on a Friday, the officials said. The > bank's offices were shut. > > Initially, the central bank was not sure if its system had been breached, > but cyber security experts brought in to investigate found hacker > "footprints" that suggested the system had been compromised, the officials > said. > > These experts could also tell that the attack originated from outside > Bangladesh, they said, adding the bank is looking into how they got into > the system and an internal investigation is ongoing. > > The bank suspects money sent to the Philippines was further diverted to > casinos there, the officials said. > > The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp, which oversees the gaming > industry, said it has launched an investigation. The country's anti-money > laundering authority is also working on the case. > > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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