FBI warned banks after $81M cyber heist: report

The FBI last month warned banks to be vigilant in the wake of the $81 million cyber heist at the Bangladesh central bank, Reuters reports.

{mosads}The private “flash” notification provided technical details on the attack and asked banks to look for signs they may have been targeted by the same group.

“The actors have exploited vulnerabilities in the internal environments of the banks and initiated unauthorized monetary transfers over an international payment messaging system,” the alert said, though it did not identify specific victims.

In February, unknown hackers stole $81 million from the Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in what is considered the largest cyber heist in history.

According to researchers, the thieves exploited a flaw in a widely used client banking payment information network from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a collective owned by more than 3,000 financial institutions. Banks across the world use the system to exchange information about financial transactions.

SWIFT has since issued a notice to its customer banks saying the breach was part of a broader effort targeting the global financial system.

“Forensic experts believe this new discovery evidences that the malware used in the earlier reported customer incident was not a single occurrence, but part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks,” the notice said.

On Capitol Hill, the leading Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has raised questions about the security of the SWIFT system.

“These cyberattacks raise important questions about the security of the SWIFT system and the ability of its members to prevent future attacks,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) wrote in a May letter to New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley and SWIFT Managing Director Patrick Antonacci.