US Fed initially blocked Bangladesh bank robbery transactions

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The US Federal Reserve blocked the 35 transactions that hackers attempted in February from the hacked account of the central bank of Bangladesh, but on a second attempt, 4 of the 35 transactions made it through while they were still suspicious.

Reuters reported this on Saturday. The claims are made by anonymous newspaper sources within the Federal Reserve Bank and the Central Bank of Bangladesh. The central bank of Bangladesh has an account with the Fed. Initially, the 35 transactions were said to have been rejected because their data did not meet the standards of Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

When the bank robbers tried to commit the same transactions again later in the day, the Swift data was correct, according to the sources. This time, four of the 35 transactions were eventually let through, despite the fact that there were still suspicious irregularities in those transactions; the money was intended for accounts in the name of individuals, but the central bank of Bangladesh rarely transfers money to individuals. In addition, the same names reappeared in both the 31 twice-blocked trades and the four that eventually went through. Those four transactions together amounted to $81 million.

The bank robbery is believed to have been committed by infecting Bangladesh’s central bank’s Swift client software with malware when it received an upgrade last fall. In total, the bank robbers tried to steal $951 million. The robbery was discovered when an employee saw that the word ‘foundation’ had been misspelled in one of the transactions. Swift is working on a new security policy in response to the robbery.

Neither Swift nor the central bank of Bangladesh have commented on the news. The Federal Reserve says its procedures are sound and refuses to elaborate on whether it has overlooked suspicious information. Several authorities are investigating the matter.

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