Reuters said the heist attempt had been similar to a hacking attack in February 2016 in which fake SWIFT messages were used to steal almost $1bn from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve.
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Despite how fortunate it was in this instance though, Tien Phong Bank will no longer be using a third party service where the SWIFT transaction request is said to have originated from.
The transfer requests were apparently made through the infrastructure of an outside vendor hired to connect TPBank to SWIFT.
A man rides a motorcycle past the Vietnamese commercial Tien Phong bank in Hanoi on Sunday.
SWIFT sent a warning to all of its customers on May 13 about malware used in schemes involving fraudulent transfers over its network. Hundreds of billions of dollars are moved internationally through the Swift system every day.
U.K.-based security firm BAE Systems Plc said in a blog post that malware samples uploaded from Bangladesh and Vietnam are a match, and that the hacks also match a third breach, the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures. Swift’s primary regulator, the National Bank of Belgium, suggested Friday that responsibility for recent cyberattacks lies with the network’s customers.
“Vietnam banks have low technological ability to deal with such risks”, he said. Following TPBank’s statement, the State Bank of Vietnam is reportedly investigating the attempted bank theft.
TPBank says it interrupted the attempted attack promptly and was able to stop the movement of funds to “criminals” by contacting involved parties.
SWIFT, a Belgian co-operative owned by member banks and used by 11,000 financial institutions globally, had said forensic experts believe the second case showed that the Bangladesh heist “was not a single occurrence, but part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks”. “Just last week it was received the “Best Internet Banking” prize from The Asian Banker”, Reuters reported.
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The country’s banks have increasingly expanded overseas as global integration brings more opportunities to companies. The central bank will provide more information later today, she said.
