Banks Increasingly Suffering Monetary Frauds through SWIFT Manipulation

According to SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) a financial messaging mechanism used worldwide, the number of hacking assaults against its member banking institutions has increased since the high-profile fraud of February wherein $81m were stolen from the Bank of Bangladesh. Swift helps identify bank codes globally while conducting wire-transfers between banks of different countries and varied sizes.

As per Reuters, private letters from the internationally-recognized institution were dispatched to bank clients so they may heighten their security arrangements ever since fresh attempts of cyber-thefts, with quite a number successful, had occurred from June onwards. After one such assault against the central bank of Bangladesh, SWIFT's updating of its clients about the kind of attacks hasn't occurred again.

Consequently, theft from banks are again occurring, with Swift not mentioning the number of effective attacks, not naming the particular banks targeted and not indicating the amount stolen. The different banking institutions that had various techniques to access SWIFT all commonly suffered from insufficient local security. Computerworld.com posted this, August 31, 2016.

In two subsequent instances, hackers attacked Banco del Austro (Ecuador) to filch $12m and targeted Tien Phong Bank (Vietnam) for merely an attempted theft of $1.36m.

More assaults included those against the SWIFT mechanism that central bank of Philippines used as also one unnamed bank within New Zealand that too was unsuccessful. During June, Ukrainian officials declared about certain bank (name undisclosed) that lost $10m following an intrusion into its network with the hackers manipulating SWIFT for moving cash out of the bank's numerous accounts.

Reuters' first report about the new breaches was complimentary to the effort for encouraging worldwide banks towards making their computer applications up-to-date following Bangladesh Bank's heist.

SWIFT to tackle the problem since then has been campaigning for persuading banks towards enhancing their IT arrangements while also utilize software of latest editions.

SWIFT stated the attacked banks employed weak security which hackers exploited for hijacking their networks followed with dispatching fake e-mails directing to make money-transfers. It further stated it'd notify to financial partners and regulators about those banks which didn't maintain proper safeguards for themselves and customers.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/6/2016