By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford
Researchers are warning that AI threatens to increase the sophistication and effectiveness of cyberattacks, according to a recent blog post by the Wall Street Journal.
By Cameron Abbott and Simon Ly
In a story that would make an excellent plot to a sequel to Ocean’s 13, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been the target of a successful major cyber hack. Part of the targeted attack was an attempt to steal nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank’s account.
If anyone would be well protected it would be the NY Fed, right? Well, while they were able to block some 30 transactions, 5 were successful, resulting in $81 million being stolen from Bangladesh Bank’s account.
The NY Fed has released a statement outlining that its systems were not breached, but instead pointing to SWIFT, a member-owned cooperative relied upon by banks to authenticate international monetary transactions. In response, a SWIFT representative stated that it “reiterates that the SWIFT network itself was not breached”. For its part, the NY Fed agreed that it “viewed this as a major lapse on the part of FRB NY”.
It will be fascinating to see how this he-said she-said blame game plays out. The current state of events is that the Bangladesh Bank is engaging legal counsel to establish grounds for recompense.
It goes without saying that these mind boggling figures and the nature of the attack emphasise that no one is immune from attacks. Next time someone tells you that it can’t happen to your organisation – remember this example.
For more information, please see Bloomberg’s report here.
by Jim Bulling and Julia Baldi
U.S. Office of Personal Management (OPM)
The U.S. government has confirmed a second cyber attack on the OPM database. Hackers are confirmed to have stolen the personal information in relation to former, current and prospective federal government employees effecting at least 21.5-mllion people (almost 7% of the entire U.S. population).
See the ABC report here, CNN report here and Guardian report here.
OPM’s website, sets out how person’s may have been affected by the breach and what OPM is doing to assist those affected. OPM has sent notifications to those affected by the incident and is offering free identity theft monitoring and restoration services including identity theft insurance and credit monitoring.
OPM has also outlined a cybersecurity action report, available here.
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