The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) told clients on Friday to share information on attacks on the system to help prevent hacking, after criminals used SWIFT messages to steal US$81 million from the Bangladesh central bank.
Earlier on Friday, Reuters reported that Wells Fargo & Co, Ecuador’s Banco del Austro (BDA) and Citibank, whose franchise risk and strategy managing director, Yawar Shah, is SWIFT’s chairman, did not inform the international financial messaging service of an attack last year in which more than US$12 million was stolen from BDA.
The banks and Shah all declined to comment on why they did not inform SWIFT.
Banks use secure SWIFT messages for issuing payment instructions to each other. The network is considered the backbone of international finance, but faith in its security has been rocked by the theft from Bank Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
SWIFT said in a communication to users that they should “immediately inform SWIFT of any suspected fraudulent use of their institution’s SWIFT connectivity or related to SWIFT products and services.”
SWIFT spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said banks whose SWIFT systems had been hacked should inform SWIFT.
She said she was unable to say whether banks, such as Wells Fargo, that received messages they later discovered were fraudulent, should inform SWIFT.
SWIFT is especially concerned about the use of malware to access interfaces with the SWIFT network.
The Belgium-based co-operative, which is owned by its user banks, said it needed technical information from systems which have been compromised with malware to better understand the risks of attack.
Malware was used in the hacks on Bank Bangladesh in February and in the BDA case in January last year.
“It is essential that you share critical security information related to SWIFT with us, “SWIFT said.
SWIFT told clients it would notify them as soon as possible of cases where malware had been used to attack systems “so that you can better target your preventative and detective efforts.”
SWIFT did not inform clients about the BDA theft, because it was unaware of it, a spokeswoman said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS