All the services of the Bank of Valletta have been interrupted
The Bank
of Valletta, Malta, shut down all of its operations and communications,
including the closure of its ATMs and branches, after detecting a cyberattack
in which a group of hackers tried to steal more than €13M, reported network
security specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security.
According to local media, all bank services,
including branches, ATMs and mobile banking have been suspended, and the bank’s
website is offline.
In a statement picked up by various sources,
Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta, stated that the attack was detected by
the networks security teams on Bank of Valletta on Thursday morning. The Prime
Minister points out that the attack originated outside Maltese territory and
that the attackers tried to transfer more than €13M to various
banks located in the United States, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
The bank’s website has not yet been
rehabilitated; and even domain name servers appear to have been deleted,
mentioned the network
security specialists.
“The Bank of Valletta deeply regrets any
inconvenience this might cause to our clients; we will keep the general public
informed about any new information”, is read in the bank statement. The
institution added that customer data has not been compromised during the
incident.
This unprecedented security measure stopped any
payment processing system from the bank, including payments made through retail
outlets, whose infrastructure is based on the Bank of Valletta’s systems.
According to the information retaken from some stores, the closing of
operations of the bank began around 13:00, Malta time.
This kind of attack on banking institutions has
become very common. One of the most relevant cases was the robbery at Far
Eastern International Bank in 2017, where hackers stole about $60M USD after
compromising bank networks. On the other hand, groups of hackers allegedly
sponsored by the North Korean government were accused of stealing around $12M
USD from Cosmo
Bank in India after compromising their ATM network.
As a curious fact, the Bank of Valletta was
commemorating its Secure Internet Day just a couple of days ago. It hasn’t been
three full days of that date and there doesn’t even seem to be any online
activity records from the bank.
