Mohammed Badrul Ahsan :
Although Bangladesh is used to pass every year with more or less ups and downs, but the year 2016 is exceptional to its history with the much talked and ever biggest financial crime ‘BB-heists’ which is also most probably the biggest cyber-heists of the globe.
No such financial crime happened in the country’s history which will also be recorded in the world’s history of cyber-crime.
In February 2016, instructions to steal US$951 million from the central bank, were issued via the SWIFT network. Five transactions issued by hackers, worth $101 million and withdrawn from a Bangladesh Bank (BB) account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, succeeded, with $20 million traced to Sri Lanka (since recovered) and $81 million to the Philippines (about $18 million recovered). The Federal Reserve Bank of NY in one moment blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to $850 million, at the request of Bangladesh Bank.
However, the government, later appointed panel investigating the cyber-heist of $81 million and found five officials at the bank were guilty of negligence and carelessness, the head of the panel told the reporters recently.
In his first detailed comments on the inquiry since a report was submitted to the government in May, former central bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin said the officials were low to mid-level and were not directly involved in the crime.
‘They were negligent, careless and indirect accomplices,’ he said in an interview in his office. ‘The committee came to the conclusion that the heist was essentially committed by external elements.’
Meanwhile, the concern authority has so far refused to make the inquiry report public saying it wanted to deny perpetrators knowledge of the investigation into one of the world’s biggest cyber-heists.
It was not immediately known if Bangladesh had shared the report with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the main agency investigating the crime.
Farashuddin did not name the officials he found were negligent. A senior central bank official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no action had been taken against any employee since the inquiry report had not been made public.
Although over 10 months have passed since the heist, there have been no arrests and no word on who carried out the complex heist.
Hackers used stolen credentials to try to transfer nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through the SWIFT transaction system. Many of the transfer orders were blocked or reversed but $81 million was sent to accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in the Philippines.
The money eventually went into the sprawling casino industry in the Philippines and most of it remains untraced.
Like Bangladesh police investigators, Farashuddin said the inquiry panel also found the hackers may have exploited loopholes in the bank’s online security when technicians hooked up the central bank’s local money transfer system with SWIFT’s international payments network late last year.
SWIFT has denied charges that its technicians were responsible for exposing Bangladesh Bank’s systems to hackers.
According to international news agency, ‘Reuters’ BB had not protected its computer system with a firewall, and used second-hand $10 electronic switches to network computers linked to SWIFT, weaknesses that the hackers may also have exploited.
Although Bangladesh is used to pass every year with more or less ups and downs, but the year 2016 is exceptional to its history with the much talked and ever biggest financial crime ‘BB-heists’ which is also most probably the biggest cyber-heists of the globe.
No such financial crime happened in the country’s history which will also be recorded in the world’s history of cyber-crime.
In February 2016, instructions to steal US$951 million from the central bank, were issued via the SWIFT network. Five transactions issued by hackers, worth $101 million and withdrawn from a Bangladesh Bank (BB) account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, succeeded, with $20 million traced to Sri Lanka (since recovered) and $81 million to the Philippines (about $18 million recovered). The Federal Reserve Bank of NY in one moment blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to $850 million, at the request of Bangladesh Bank.
However, the government, later appointed panel investigating the cyber-heist of $81 million and found five officials at the bank were guilty of negligence and carelessness, the head of the panel told the reporters recently.
In his first detailed comments on the inquiry since a report was submitted to the government in May, former central bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin said the officials were low to mid-level and were not directly involved in the crime.
‘They were negligent, careless and indirect accomplices,’ he said in an interview in his office. ‘The committee came to the conclusion that the heist was essentially committed by external elements.’
Meanwhile, the concern authority has so far refused to make the inquiry report public saying it wanted to deny perpetrators knowledge of the investigation into one of the world’s biggest cyber-heists.
It was not immediately known if Bangladesh had shared the report with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the main agency investigating the crime.
Farashuddin did not name the officials he found were negligent. A senior central bank official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no action had been taken against any employee since the inquiry report had not been made public.
Although over 10 months have passed since the heist, there have been no arrests and no word on who carried out the complex heist.
Hackers used stolen credentials to try to transfer nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through the SWIFT transaction system. Many of the transfer orders were blocked or reversed but $81 million was sent to accounts in a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in the Philippines.
The money eventually went into the sprawling casino industry in the Philippines and most of it remains untraced.
Like Bangladesh police investigators, Farashuddin said the inquiry panel also found the hackers may have exploited loopholes in the bank’s online security when technicians hooked up the central bank’s local money transfer system with SWIFT’s international payments network late last year.
SWIFT has denied charges that its technicians were responsible for exposing Bangladesh Bank’s systems to hackers.
According to international news agency, ‘Reuters’ BB had not protected its computer system with a firewall, and used second-hand $10 electronic switches to network computers linked to SWIFT, weaknesses that the hackers may also have exploited.
