Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Typos Thwart $1 Billion Bangladesh Account Hack Attempt

Hackers who allegedly infiltrated the Bangladesh central bank were attempting to steal almost $1 billion from an account it held with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but typos thwarted the full heist, officials said Friday.

Hackers who allegedly infiltrated the Bangladesh central bank were attempting to steal almost $1 billion from an account it held with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but typos thwarted the full heist, officials said Friday.

The hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh’s foreign exchange account on February 5, according to officials from Bangladesh Bank, the central bank, and transferred it to the Philippines.

The hackers, who bombarded the New York bank with dozens of transfer requests, had been attempting to steal a further $850 million, but the bank’s security systems and typos in some requests prevented the full theft.

“$81 million was transferred from the Federal Reserve Bank to Filipino accounts while attempts to claim $850 million were foiled by the Federal Reserve Bank’s security system,” Razee Hassan, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, told AFP.

“Attempts to transfer money to Sri Lanka by the hackers were foiled as their transfer requests contained typos,” he said.

Hackers made 35 unsuccessful transfer attempts and appeared to be exploiting gaps in communication between banks at weekends, Hassan added.

The hack took place on a Friday, when Bangladesh Bank is closed, while the Federal Reserve Bank in New York is closed on Saturday and Sunday.

In the Philippines, banks were also closed on the Monday owing to Chinese New Year.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Bangladeshi cyber crime experts are investigating the incident. The Bangladesh Bank has previously said it suspects the hackers were Chinese.

The US reserve bank, which manages the Bangladesh Bank reserve account, denied its own systems were breached.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York wrote on its Twitter account on March 7: “Regarding hacking reports, there is no evidence of attempts to penetrate Federal Reserve systems & no evidence Fed systems were compromised.”

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.