Global Institutions May Be Susceptible To Hackers, SWIFT Remains Vulnerable
By Tyler Durden
The world of central banking relies on transferring vast amounts of information along controlled and secure messaging lines, around 2 million per day between roughly 7,000 institutions. The system of connections to and from central banks in Asia, Russia, China, Africa, and the Americas is known as SWIFT (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). SWIFT provides a means for sending messages between the parties that have access to it. Each party is responsible for providing security measures before accessing the SWIFT network.
On March 7, 2016 Reuters reported the central bank for Bangladesh stated it discovered unauthorized withdrawals from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). The amount of the unauthorized transfer has been reported to be USD $951 million. The World Bank database shows Bangladesh holds just shy of USD $28 billion in foreign exchange reserves on its books, an amount that has tripled since 2011.
Around the middle of April reports appeared which stated that roughly USD $81 million remained uncovered. It still remains uncovered as of this writing. What also remains uncovered is the truth of what happened. We have yet to learn if someone hacked into the SWIFT system from outside the Bangladesh central bank headquarters or if the unauthorized transaction was executed as an “inside job”. Sources speaking with Zero Hedge control cyber security operations for international companies have said it would appear the complexity of the steps necessary to execute a transaction across the SWIFT system would require knowledge from someone who regularly interacts with the SWIFT system.
What's more, the SWIFT hack was not even the main objective of the group, they merely stumbled upon an entry point while monitoring the system for message flows. Security in the cyber world is fragile, as evidenced by the uniqueness of the SWIFT system and the fact that entry to the system was not the main purpose of the hackers.
Symantec said in a blog post that the SWIFT attack shared code and tools similar to those used to attack SONY's systems in 2014. When systems are compromised, entire rebuilds are necessary to ensure a vacuum-type environment going forward. As the US Dept. of Homeland Security Chief said at a Council on Foreign Relations Q&A, we're paraphrasing, “we assume every system is compromised and we focus primarily on the offensive”. What he likely means is that the best defense is a good offense, take out the other guys' system before he gets into yours. This view could be damaging to FireEye should this topic find itself on the mainstream stage.
FireEye bills its product as one that can be installed on an existing system and secure that system, meaning that beyond a doubt the FireEye product is able to clean and sanitize a system that was once open to be compromised, a defensive system. One may be well suited to ponder: at what point is a system too complex for FireEye's product to …read more
Source: Global Institutions May Be Susceptible To Hackers, SWIFT Remains Vulnerable
