Reuters: SWIFT Discovers Cyber Theft Attempts Against Member Banks

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication has detected cyber theft attempts against its member banks that resulted in some successful attacks, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Jim Finkle writes a SWIFT letter to clients stated the hacking attempts have been discovered since June – after SWIFT gave customers its latest update on cyber attacks.

“Customers’ environments have been compromised, and subsequent attempts (were) made to send fraudulent payment instructions,” the letter stated.

The letter suggests hackers may have expanded their efforts after $81 million was stolen from Bangladesh’s central bank through SWIFT’s financial messaging network, Finkle reported.

SWIFT did not identify victims nor disclose the amount of money stolen but the letter said the banks differ in size, geography and used various methods to access SWIFT’s network, Finkle wrote.