Federal Reserve sends $80M to hackers at Philippines casinos

[Will Wiley]

Sounds like a movie.

Apparently the hackers must have hacked in and gotten the swift code for the Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve...and....the Federal Reserve saw nothing suspicious about sending large sums to casinos in the Philippines.

$1 Billion Plot to Rob Fed Accounts Leads to Manila Casinos

Essentially the dispute is about whether the Fed went through the right procedure when it received transfer orders.
A Fed spokeswoman said instructions to make the payments from the central bank’s account followed protocol and were authenticated by the SWIFT codes system. There were no signs the Fed’s systems were hacked, she said.
A Bangladesh official said the Fed should’ve checked the payment orders with the central bank to ensure they were authentic, even if they used the correct SWIFT codes. The official also said there are plans to take legal action against the Fed to retrieve missing funds.

Thankfully a spelling mistake stopped it possibly being $1B

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-bangladesh-typo-insight-idUSKCN0WC0TC

A spelling mistake in an online bank transfer instruction helped prevent a nearly $1 billion heist last month involving the Bangladesh central bank and the New York Fed, banking officials said.

Unknown hackers still managed to get away with about $80 million, one of the largest known bank thefts in history.

The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and stole its credentials for payment transfers, two senior officials at the bank said. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with nearly three dozen requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank's account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the officials said.

Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organisation was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation.

Hackers misspelled "foundation" in the NGO's name as "fandation", prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction, one of the officials said

.

 

[KeepTalking]

Sounds like a movie.

Apparently the hackers must have hacked in and gotten the swift code for the Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve...and....the Federal Reserve saw nothing suspicious about sending large sums to casinos in the Philippines.

$1 Billion Plot to Rob Fed Accounts Leads to Manila Casinos




Thankfully a spelling mistake stopped it possibly being $1B

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-bangladesh-typo-insight-idUSKCN0WC0TC

A spelling mistake in an online bank transfer instruction helped prevent a nearly $1 billion heist last month involving the Bangladesh central bank and the New York Fed, banking officials said.

Unknown hackers still managed to get away with about $80 million, one of the largest known bank thefts in history.

The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and stole its credentials for payment transfers, two senior officials at the bank said. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with nearly three dozen requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank's account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the officials said.

Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organisation was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation.

Hackers misspelled "foundation" in the NGO's name as "fandation", prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction, one of the officials said

.

I don't think the Bangladesh Bank has a very good case here. It was their system that was breached, not the Fed's, so they are at fault and on the hook for the charges.

There also seems to be a math fail in the article, $81 million plus $20 million does not equal $1 billion.

 

[dismal]

the Federal Reserve saw nothing suspicious about sending large sums to casinos in the Philippines.

I guess when you have a license to print money you don't take losing $80 million so hard.

They can just print up some more.

 

[barbos]

There also seems to be a math fail in the article, $81 million plus $20 million does not equal $1 billion.

They stopped on 5th transfer, but there were a lot more in the pipe.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sounds like a movie.

Apparently the hackers must have hacked in and gotten the swift code for the Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve...and....the Federal Reserve saw nothing suspicious about sending large sums to casinos in the Philippines.

$1 Billion Plot to Rob Fed Accounts Leads to Manila Casinos




Thankfully a spelling mistake stopped it possibly being $1B

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-bangladesh-typo-insight-idUSKCN0WC0TC
.

I don't think the Bangladesh Bank has a very good case here. It was their system that was breached, not the Fed's, so they are at fault and on the hook for the charges.

There also seems to be a math fail in the article, $81 million plus $20 million does not equal $1 billion.

Yup. Bangladesh is the one who lost the code. The Fed was simply following apparently legitimate directions, they were not hacked.

 

[Will Wiley]

Sounds like a movie.

Apparently the hackers must have hacked in and gotten the swift code for the Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve...and....the Federal Reserve saw nothing suspicious about sending large sums to casinos in the Philippines.

$1 Billion Plot to Rob Fed Accounts Leads to Manila Casinos




Thankfully a spelling mistake stopped it possibly being $1B

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-bangladesh-typo-insight-idUSKCN0WC0TC
.

I don't think the Bangladesh Bank has a very good case here. It was their system that was breached, not the Fed's, so they are at fault and on the hook for the charges.

There also seems to be a math fail in the article, $81 million plus $20 million does not equal $1 billion.

There waere requests for $1B waiting to be approved. Only the spelling mistake stopped that

 

[KeepTalking]

I don't think the Bangladesh Bank has a very good case here. It was their system that was breached, not the Fed's, so they are at fault and on the hook for the charges.

There also seems to be a math fail in the article, $81 million plus $20 million does not equal $1 billion.

There waere requests for $1B waiting to be approved. Only the spelling mistake stopped that

The quoted part of the article does not make that clear, only that $81 million was taken, and another $20 million was stopped by the spelling mistake, equaling a total of $101 million. The first article linked also says the following:

A Bangladesh central bank official who is part of a panel investigating the disappearance of the funds said Wednesday that a separate transfer of $870 million had been blocked by the Fed. The official requested anonymity because the investigation is private. A Fed spokeswoman said she had no comment when asked about the attempted $870 million transfer.

It doesn't appear to be including that amount in the calculation of $1 billion being attributed to the Manila Casinos, given the wording "a separate transfer". So, I think the math fail there still applies.

The Rueters article does a better job of explaining things, but I did not read that article before commenting.

 

[Will Wiley]

It's quite a worry that the Swift system was so easily compromised, assuming those at the Federal reserve followed the correct procedures.

I mean all a hacker has to do is steal the Swift key it seems and those idiots at the Federal reserve will send large amounts of money to casinos.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's quite a worry that the Swift system was so easily compromised, assuming those at the Federal reserve followed the correct procedures.

I mean all a hacker has to do is steal the Swift key it seems and those idiots at the Federal reserve will send large amounts of money to casinos.

The Swift system was not compromised. That's like saying your front door was compromised because a pickpocket took your keys.

 

[Will Wiley]

It's quite a worry that the Swift system was so easily compromised, assuming those at the Federal reserve followed the correct procedures.

I mean all a hacker has to do is steal the Swift key it seems and those idiots at the Federal reserve will send large amounts of money to casinos.

The Swift system was not compromised. That's like saying your front door was compromised because a pickpocket took your keys.

You're splitting hairs...but clearly you think the Federal Reserve are complete imbeciles then.
Who the fuck sends $80M of Bangladesh's money to Casinos in the Philippines without checking fist?

 

[barbos]

The Swift system was not compromised. That's like saying your front door was compromised because a pickpocket took your keys.

You're splitting hairs...but clearly you think the Federal Reserve are complete imbeciles then.
Who the fuck sends $80M of Bangladesh's money to Casinos in the Philippines without checking fist?

If they start double checking every $80mi transfer nothing will get done.

Having said that, I wonder if they can track that money, there must be some way to do it.