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SWIFT system targeted again, Nepalese bank affected

Thursday 9 November 2017 10:08 CET | News

The global SWIFT bank messaging system has been hacked again, this time affecting a bank in Nepal, NIC Asia Bank.

Most of the stolen funds have been recovered, two officials involved in the investigation confirmed for Reuters. In October 2017, hackers made about USD 4.4 million in fraudulent transfers from the Kathmandu-based bank to countries including Britain, China, Japan, Singapore and the US when the bank was closed for annual festival holidays, according to Nepal media reports.

According to a bank’s representative, all but USD 580,000 of the funds were recovered after Nepal asked other nations to block release of the stolen money. Nevertheless, investigations continue, and Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau, KPMG are involved in this process.

SWIFT said that security controls instituted after last year’s USD 81 million theft from Bangladesh’s central bank helped prevent some recent hacking attempts, but it warned that cyber criminals continue to target SWIFT customers.


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Keywords: SWIFT, bank messaging, NIC Asia Bank, Nepal, online fraud, transfer fraud, Asia, online security
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
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Countries: World
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Fraud & Financial Crime