US Congress launches probe into $80m cyberheist

A congressional committee has launched an investigation into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s handling of the heist of more than $80 million from accounts it maintains for the central bank of Bangladesh, CNBC has learned.

According to a CNBC report, in a letter to New York Fed president William Dudley on Tuesday, US House science committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, asked for “all documents and communications” related to the cyberheist from the Bangladesh Bank account.

The committee also wanted to know what oversight the Fed has conducted of the SWIFT system, an international electronic messaging system used by banks worldwide to authorize billions of dollars a day in money transfers.

The CNBC report said the House committee is requesting a briefing by the New York Fed on the status of its investigations, and “all documents or communications related to any review conducted by the NY Fed of its own information technology.”

The committee reportedly said its jurisdiction over the matter stems from its oversight of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Federal Information Security Management act of 2014, which created an overall effort to protect government information.

The House committee requested documents be produced by noon on 14 June, the report added.

Source: Prothom Alo