$81 Million Bank Heist Alarms World Banking System

In an operation that one security consultant compared to a digital Ocean’s Eleven, hackers may have lurked for months in the computer systems at a Bangladesh bank before making their move.When they did they managed to spirit $81 million to accounts in the Philippines, from where it apparently disappeared into the lightly regulated Philippine casino system. A article in the New York Times explains how it worked, with the money moving by way of a system called “Swift” (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which one financial analyst calls the Rolls Royce of payment transfer systems. The weak link in the process can be the individual local bank, which if it lacks basic security as the Bangladesh bank apparently did, can provide an entree even if Swift remains intact. This one could have been worse. This transaction had to be routed through the New York Federal Reserve, which became suspicious of the list of destinations and tried to get confirmation from Bangladesh. That proved difficult because the thieves had been clever enough to schedule the transfer for a weekend, but the Fed nonetheless stopped the process after just five of 35 fraudulent transactions were processed.