Hackers steal from central bank via SWIFT platform

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SWIFT, the global financial network that banks use to transfer billions of dollars every day, warned its customers on Monday that it was aware of "a number of recent cyber incidents" where attackers had sent fraudulent messages over its system.

The disclosure came as law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere investigated the February cyber theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. SWIFT has acknowledged that the scheme involved altering SWIFT software on Bangladesh Bank's computers to hide evidence of fraudulent transfers.

Monday's statement from SWIFT marked the first acknowledgement that the Bangladesh Bank attack was not an isolated incident but one of several recent criminal schemes that aimed to take advantage of the global messaging platform used by some 11,000 financial institutions.

"SWIFT is aware of a number of recent cyber incidents in which malicious insiders or external attackers have managed to submit SWIFT messages from financial institutions' back-offices, PCs or workstations connected to their local interface to the SWIFT network," the group warned customers on Monday in a notice seen by Reuters.
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Cyber security experts said more attacks could surface as SWIFT's banking clients look to see if their SWIFT access has been compromised.

Shane Shook, a banking security consultant who investigates large financial crime, said hackers were turning to SWIFT and other private financial messaging platforms because such attacks can generate more revenue than going after consumers or small businesses.

"These hacks specifically target financial institutions because smaller efforts result in much larger thefts," he said. "It's much more efficient than stealing from consumers."
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-banking-swift-exclusive-idUSKCN0XM2DI

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess this wasn't the work of some lone wolf hackers. This has state actor written all over it IMO. The USA once threatened Russia with being frozen out of the SWIFT system. Russia haz very good haxxors...

Can something truly be "stolen" if that "something" doesn't actually exist as a tangible thing? Where were these billions transferred to? How does a haxxor group translate these electronic billions into real billions outside of the "paper" trail electronic system?
 
As you suggest Bug, it might encourage some to consider using an alternative to SWIFT ........
 
Sounds like an inside job was my first thought.
 
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