A Cyber-attack on Union Bank of India in July 2016 initiated the malware that hackers used to steal Union Bank’s access codes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The access codes were for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a system that lenders use for international transactions.
The cyber-attack began after an employee opened an email attachment which released malware that allowed hackers to steal the state-run bank’s data.
The opening of the email attachment, which looked like it had come from India’s central bank, initiated the malware that hackers used to steal Union Bank’s access codes.
The attempt closely resembled the cyber theft in 2016 of more than $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve, the paper reported.
The codes were used to send transfer instructions for about $170 million to a Union Bank account at Citigroup Inc in New York.
Union Bank had traced the money trail and blocked the movement of funds.
SWIFT had late 2016 said that some banks using its system had been attacked after the Bangladesh heist, the Journal said, but did not specifically name Union Bank of India.
Union Bank Chairman Arun Tiwari told the newspaper that SWIFT officials had been working with the bank since the day of the cyber-attack.
SWIFT, however, declined to comment.
NAN.
Trending
- Why more marriages break up – Counsellors
- Discrepancy in account names delaying Heritage Bank customers’ payment – NDIC
- NYSC scheme and the spirit of discipline, by Haroon Aremu
- Ecobank Nigeria launches super rewards ‘Millionaire Geng Promo’
- Shiites demand unconditional release of detained pro-Palestine protesters in Abuja
- Circumventing funding challenges in Nigeria’s oil sector before net zero, by Akpadem James
- Diri, Muftwang sign MoU on solar power, others
- Cholera: Lagos records improvement in daily cases