SWIFT report: The volume of funds stolen by hackers from banks decreased tenfold three years after breaking into $ 100 million

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The international interbank system of information transfer and making payments SWIFT has published a report with information about attempts to steal money. According to him, in 2018, attackers attempted to steal funds in the amount of $ 250 thousand to $ 2 million.
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Hackers activity in numbers

Compared with previous years, the volume of criminal transactions decreased significantly. In 2016, hackers managed to conduct a cyber attack on the central bank of Bangladesh and steal from $ 80 to $ 100 million from his accounts in the US federal reserve system. In the same year, several more large-scale thefts occurred - for example, the media reported on the theft of $ 10 million from one of the Ukrainian banks.

Such large transactions are easier to notice, therefore, to circumvent antifraud systems, criminals try to break them up into smaller ones.

Almost all fraudulent transactions (83%) are directed to banks in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, money is abducted more often in countries with a high level of corruption both in state bodies and in private organizations. The top lines are occupied by Tajikistan, Mozambique and Afghanistan.

What has changed since the cyber attack on $ 100 million

In total, more than 11,000 organizations worldwide are connected to the SWIFT system. Since the cyber attack and theft of money from the central bank of Bangladesh, the SWIFT administration has implemented a series of measures to improve the information security of the system. This led to a decrease in the amount of funds that can be stolen by hackers.

In addition, criminals now try to make transactions more frequently during work hours so that they are lost in the general flow of legitimate SWIFT messages. Previously, fraudulent operations were more often carried out on weekends or on holidays — this was done to make it difficult for people to detect them.

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