2016Financial theft
Bangladesh Bank cyber heist
February 2016
Attackers inside Bangladesh Bank's network used its access to the SWIFT interbank messaging system to send fraudulent payment instructions to its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Many of the requests were blocked, but some were paid out.
- Victim
- Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh
- Sector
- Financial services
- Public attribution
- In 2018 the US Department of Justice charged a North Korean programmer, alleging he was part of the team behind this theft, the Sony Pictures attack and WannaCry.Lazarus Group profile
Impact
The US Department of Justice said 81 million US dollars was stolen.
Root cause
Attackers compromised the bank's own systems, gained the ability to send authenticated SWIFT messages, and, according to the US criminal complaint, took steps to hide the fraudulent transfers.
Lessons learned: the controls it teaches
- Isolate and harden payment messaging systems, with strict access control and monitoring.
- Reconcile transactions independently so local tampering cannot hide fraud.
- Out-of-band verification for unusual high-value payments.