Hackers have been stolen millions in Mexican banks

The Central Bank of Mexico and the regulatory agency said on the 14th that between 18 million and 20 million U.S. dollars have recently disappeared during the electronic transfer of many banks and may be stolen by hackers.

Lorenza Martinez, director of the central bank’s corporate payment and service system, said that at least five attacks against SPEI, the official Mexican electronic payment system, occurred between April and May. He denied reports that the media had previously lost 400 million pesos (about 20.39 million US dollars). The amount is being verified. Some transfers have been stopped and the money is being returned.

Alejandro Diaz de Leon, who heads the government’s commitment to protecting customers in the financial industry, said that the amount lost may be between 350 and 400 million pesos (18.75 to 20.39 million US dollars). Some of the funds were transferred via the SPEI system, and the identity of the trader and payee information was not clear.

Reuters reported to two sources who were familiar with government investigations that hackers sent hundreds of wrong instructions to banks such as Northern Commercial Bank to transfer tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of pesos to false accounts of other banks. , and then withdraw cash from dozens of branches.

In Mexico, the interbank payment system allows real-time transfers between different banks. One source said that hackers may have internal problems in the bank because of a large number of cash withdrawals that are uncommon in Mexico.

The three banks discovered flaws in the software screening process on April 27th, and other banks immediately entered the security detection mode and discovered huge sums of money. Martinez said that the SPEI system was not damaged, but the software provided by other agencies or third parties to connect payment systems was flawed.

However, the evaporation of large sums of money did not affect the depositors. Instead, it caused many banks to suffer a loss. Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon said that this is a painful lesson. The bank must improve the system security standards in the future, not only to protect customer data security but also to protect its own identity information.

The Central Bank requires all banks to implement additional security measures to extend the transfer time of transactions such as debit card pre-authorization and electronic payment. This will undoubtedly bring some inconvenience to some retail banking customers or ATM users.