SWIFT system was attacked, hackers steal $6 million from Russian bank
In recent years, global bank clients of the SWIFT system (Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association) have been repeatedly hit by hacking attacks and account deposits have been stolen. Russia’s central bank recently disclosed that the country’s bank SWIFT system was also black last year.
Russia’s central bank said on Friday (February 16) that unknown hackers had successfully stolen 339,500,000 rubles (about 6 million U.S. dollars) in an attack on the Russian SWIFT International Payment Information System last year, Reuters reported. This information was placed at the end of the Russian central bank’s report on the digital theft section.
The Bank of Russia said it had previously received a message regarding “successful attacks” at a SWIFT system operator’s duty station. “This attack resulted in an unauthorized operation (amount) of 339.5 million rubles,” the Russian Central Bank said.
The bank declined to provide further details. And SWIFT spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said SWIFT does not comment on specific (user) entities. “When potential fraud is reported to us, we provide assistance to affected users to help secure the environment at SWIFT,” she said.
At the end of last year, SWIFT, headquartered in Brussels, Switzerland, said digital hacking has become more prominent as hackers use more sophisticated tools and techniques to launch attacks.
SWIFT declined to disclose the number of hackers and the victims, but details of some of the cases were made public by various means, including the Far Eastern International Commercial Bank in Taiwan and the attack on NIC Asia Bank in Nepal.
Russia’s central bank’s disclosure was the latest in a worldwide hack to hit the SWIFT system and successfully steal bank funds. In February 2016, a total of 101 million U.S. dollars in the Bank of New York’s central bank account was stolen by hackers. 20 million of them were transferred to Sri Lanka and later recovered. Another 81 million U.S. dollars was transferred to the Philippines, the final destination is unknown.
Source: Reuters
