SWIFT To Issue Warning In Wake Of Cyberattack On Bagladesh Central Bank

After a recent cyber-theft of over $80 million from Bangladesh Bank, SWIFT today plans to advise banks to implement security measures to avoid similar attacks.

Brussels-based SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which provides secure messaging services and software to financial institutions worldwide, will issue a security advisory today asking banks monitor their internal security. "Our priority at this time is to encourage customers to review and, where necessary, to reinforce their local operating environments," said a spokeswoman for the group told Reuters.

Security consultant Shane Shook said in the report that while SWIFT can recommend financial institutions to follow some security standards, there are no specific measures to be uniformly adopted by all of them to secure their networks against financial breaches.

As evident from an interim report on the Bangladesh attack submitted by forensics experts from FireEye and World Informatix, hackers breached the bank's network, accessed credentials for sending SWIFT messages, and processed transactions via malware installed on the bank's computers. According to Reuters, SWIFT confirmed that the attack was due to internal operational issues at Bangladesh Bank, and not due to SWIFT's core messaging system.

Investigators identified that these hackers have also targeted attacks on other financial institutions -- though they have not yet identified those banks.

Read more on the report from Reuters article.