An electronic heist was attempted into the Malaysian Central bank by hackers to steal money via wire transfers and other illegal means. A similar kind of attack was done on a Bangladeshi bank last year where $81 million were stolen. Even Russian banks lost millions due to SWIFT attacks last year.
How Was The Hack Attempted?
It had quite a few similarities to the Bangladesh bank heist which happened last year because both the hacks involved hack attempts from a Swiss Bank Network.
Was Anything Compromised?
According to the central bank, no payment system was affected and everything was safe. The central bank also looks over about 45 commercial banks but investigation revealed that none of them were compromised.
What Steps Were Taken By The Central Bank?
They immediately postponed all transactions and ran a thorough check on the system to find out if anything was exploited. While they did not find any issues as the attempt had failed, they are still looking into the possibility that funds may have been transferred.
Who Were The Hackers?
No information regarding the hackers has been disclosed by the Central bank as of yet.
The Bottomline
While this Malaysia Central Bank hacking attempt was not successful, it is still worrisome.
Cyberattacks are increasing rapidly and it’s high time that cybersecurity defense teams step in and apprehend the ones behind it. While SWIFT declined to give more details on such attacks, there really is a need to improve things.
Source:
https://in.reuters.com/article/malaysia-cenbank-cybersecurity-incident/malaysian-central-bank-says-foiled-attempted-cyber-heist-idINKBN1H50XT
