According to US-based cyber security website Data Breach Today, a Turkish hacker collective has leaked data belonging to three Bangladeshi banks.
Hacking group Bozkurtlar has leaked data belonging to Bangladeshi banks Dutch Bangla Bank, The City Bank, and Trust Bank.
It is highly concerning that the data leaked might have contained confidential account information and customer credentials.
The new breach makes it all the more urgent for the government and Bangladesh Bank to undertake comprehensive reforms to upgrade security procedures and protocols in the nation’s banking system.
With the recent findings reported by global financial messaging network SWIFT that the Bangladesh Bank Federal Reserve account is part of a “wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks,” there is no excuse for the government to not be more pro-active in safeguarding our national financial security.
Data Breach Today has also suggested that a second bank, a Vietnamese commercial bank, has recently been breached by the same culprits as that of the Bangladesh Bank heist, tying in with the regional pattern of the hackers’ operations — with the stolen funds from Bangladesh Bank’s account being laundered in the Philippines and Sri Lanka some time ago.
That something as pedestrian as a piece of malware was used by the Bangladesh Bank thieves to breach through the bank’s systems at once shows the level of proficiency on the part of the hackers while also heavily exposing the dire state of the systems that pass for “cyber security” in our government institutions.
Despite the global scale of the attack, collusion within the Bank itself should not be ruled out, especially given the staggering amount of corruption that already plagues our administrative forces.
These recent leaks give the Bangladesh government all the more reason to reach out to the nations involved and make a joint effort to locate the masterminds behind these heists and retrieve the full amount of money that has been siphoned off from Bangladeshi citizens.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
