Special Correspondent :
The Ministry of Finance has wanted to know the central bank’s preparedness to prevent fundamental cyber threats and tackle incidents of cyber crimes in the bank following an alert in this regard.
The Ministry for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology issued the alert in a letter to Finance Minister AMA Muhith on August 9.
“Our Minister has asked to know the central bank’s reaction and activities following the alert of cyber threat issued by the Ministry concerned. He (Muhith) issued an instruction in this regard to the Bangladesh Bank Governor,” a senior Finance Ministry official told The New Nation yesterday, on condition of anonymity.
He said, the Minister expressed concern about the cyber risks at the central bank and asked the authorities to take necessary steps to response and prevent the emerging risks.
In the letter sent and singed by Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Mustafa Jabbar said, information picked up from the cyber security and sensor system that has been set up at
Bangladesh Bank shows hackers have installed malware at important computers of the central bank and regularly passing information of cyber security around the vault to hackers stationed in Romania, Japan and China.
It said since the central bank is yet to set up a cyber security team, necessary preventive measures being delayed making the system vulnerable to hackers.
It risks a major cyber attack after a similar attack on Bangladesh Bank reserves two years back. The letter sought to alert Bangladesh Bank in this respect.
“We are aware of the situation and monitoring closely with the concerned agencies to prevent the central bank’s system from the cyber attack,” Bangladesh Bank (BB) Deputy Governor SM Moniruzzman told The New Nation recently.
He, however, claimed that the central bank is out of risk as they have installed all preventive measures to prevent any surprise.
Officials said, cyber security or information technology security are the techniques of protecting computers, networks, programmes and data from unauthorised access or attacks that are aimed for exploitation. Major areas covered in cyber security are: application security, information security, disaster recovery and network security.
“Formation of a cyber security team remains our active consideration. We will form it as soon as possible,” a senior BB official told The New Nation yesterday.
He said the central bank is working relentlessly for identification of evolving cyber threats, identification of cyber security measures and capabilities, as well as the selection of important and measurable aspects, including legal acts, regulations, policies, exercises, technologies, websites and programmes.
