Ecuador Bank Claims To Have Suffered From A SWIFT Breach In 2015

The SWIFT story is far from over, as yet another bank says they have lost funds during the 2015 attack. A bank in Ecuador claims they have been attacked in the same way as Bangladesh bank back in 2015, resulting in a US$12m loss.

Smaller Banks Give SWIFT Team More Worries

Contrary to popular belief, the SWIFT protocol has not been taken advantage of twice, but three times in less than a year. Or that is what Banco del Austro SA in Ecuador told the media, as they reported   US$12m loss through a method sharing a lot of similarities with eh Bangladesh bank heist of US$80m last year.

Although SWIFT authorities have mentioned there was nothing wrong with the interbank gateway after the Bangladesh heist, that appears to be not entirely accurate. If the story regarding the Ecuador bank is real, the gateway is far more vulnerable than most people anticipated, and future breaches are not unlikely.

Banco del Austro SA filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo claiming hackers had obtained codes used by the bank to move money via the SWIFT protocol. The credentials were then used to transfer funds from the US bank. This story comes at an odd time, though, considering the alleged breach took place fifteen months ago.

At the same time, this points out another significant flaw in the banking world, as communication between parties seems pretty much non-existent. This makes it virtually impossible to coordinate between banks to prevent these breaches from happening, and leaves them dealing with the aftermath.

More and more of these stories are coming out as of late, as Vietnam’s Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank reported the unsuccessful transfer request for US$1.1m. Similar to the two – or three? – other attacks, a third-party service connected to the SWIFT system was used to make the transfer request.

Source: Tech Worm

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