We've often heard about hackers stealing personal data of millions of users, hitting retail stores, banks and sometime last year they even went as far as hacking the US government stealing millions of fingerprints records in the process.
But I don't think we've ever heard of hackers trying to steal $1 billion, I mean, that is really huge. However, What is more shocking is not the magnitude of the attempted hack but the fact that it was spoilt due to one olodo hacker that can't spell right.
Rather than busting ATMs or stealing bank details of unsuspecting customers, this group of really clever hackers managed to penetrate the security of the Bangladesh Central Bank and got their hands on payment transfer credentials. The Central bank of Bangladesh holds an account worth billions of dollars with the federal reserve bank of New York which it uses for international transactions.
With the credentials, the hackers sent almost three dozens transfer request from the account to various organizations in Sri Lanka and Philippines, many which are said to be non existent.
Four transfer requests went through and everything was going smoothly but then, the fifth transaction worth $20 million was held because of a typo(misspelling). The hackers misspelled foundation for fandation. This little error not only held up the transactions but it also alerted the Deutsche bank which immediately notified the Bangladesh central bank.
The Federal Reserve Bank then notified the Bangladesh bank of the huge number of transfers, all other transactions were held up as well. The bank was able to stop upto $870 million from being transferred. The hackers however still made away with millions of dollars.
They have been working with anti-laundering authorities in Sri Lanka and Philippines looking to recover some of the stolen money.
The hackers are still yet to be identified.
I'm just wondering what the rest of the group would do to the guy that made the error, I mean, We're talking abiout 1 billion dollars here, they certainly won't let him off easily.
But I don't think we've ever heard of hackers trying to steal $1 billion, I mean, that is really huge. However, What is more shocking is not the magnitude of the attempted hack but the fact that it was spoilt due to one olodo hacker that can't spell right.
Rather than busting ATMs or stealing bank details of unsuspecting customers, this group of really clever hackers managed to penetrate the security of the Bangladesh Central Bank and got their hands on payment transfer credentials. The Central bank of Bangladesh holds an account worth billions of dollars with the federal reserve bank of New York which it uses for international transactions.
With the credentials, the hackers sent almost three dozens transfer request from the account to various organizations in Sri Lanka and Philippines, many which are said to be non existent.
Four transfer requests went through and everything was going smoothly but then, the fifth transaction worth $20 million was held because of a typo(misspelling). The hackers misspelled foundation for fandation. This little error not only held up the transactions but it also alerted the Deutsche bank which immediately notified the Bangladesh central bank.
The Federal Reserve Bank then notified the Bangladesh bank of the huge number of transfers, all other transactions were held up as well. The bank was able to stop upto $870 million from being transferred. The hackers however still made away with millions of dollars.
They have been working with anti-laundering authorities in Sri Lanka and Philippines looking to recover some of the stolen money.
The hackers are still yet to be identified.
I'm just wondering what the rest of the group would do to the guy that made the error, I mean, We're talking abiout 1 billion dollars here, they certainly won't let him off easily.
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