May 12, 2016
Hackers have again gained access to the world’s largest system for transferring funds among banks, a breach the network’s operator said indicates a wide-ranging effort to penetrate the financial system.
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a cooperative that runs the international messaging system between banks, said the attack targeted a commercial bank and managed to send Swift messages using the bank’s valid codes. It followed the theft in February of $81 million from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Bangladesh case provided startling evidence of the vulnerability of parts of the financial system that had been thought highly secure.