Expressing disappointment over Bangladesh Bank’s response to the fund hacking, Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam has said the central bank’s lacking in cybersecurity has led to the incident.
The secretary held a closed-door meeting with senior Bangladesh Bank officials yesterday. “We are disappointed that a month into the incident, Bangladesh Bank did not inform the Finance Ministry officially about the hacking. The ministry is also disappointed with their response to the crisis,” Aslam said.
The meeting was the first between the Finance Ministry and Bangladesh Bank after around $100m was taken away by hackers from the central bank's overseas account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“I requested the central bank to call an emergency board meeting to discuss its next step,” he said. The meeting will be held tomorrow when the governor arrives in Dhaka.
He said of the $81m laundered to the Philippines, $68,000 had been recovered and brought back to the New York Fed account. “The rest has already been processed but it will take some time to get back as money has gone out of the banking system."
“We are going through digitalization but at the same time we need to train ourselves on technology. The failure to do that has led to this incident. Bangladesh Bank is now a big IT security risk.”
Secretary Alam said he would submit a report to the finance minister about the incident.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Razee Hassan said the theft of $870m was prevented as the New York Fed recalled those payouts following Bangladesh Bank’s advice. But the rest of $101m was paid out as the central bank did not respond in time to the requests for advice by the Fed.
“We need to find out why the central bank did not respond in time,” he said.
“Two more weeks will be needed to complete the investigation before we know whether the hacking took place from inside or outside the country,” the deputy governor added.
