The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has found evidence of mismanagement and negligence at the Bangladesh Bank which is believed to have led to February’s digital heist.
Investigators say mismanagement at the central bank allowed hackers access into the system and got away with the money. A source familiar with the investigation said hackers needed access to several active instruments to complete transaction. The bank officials did not switch them off even though the very next day, when the heist took place, was a weekend.
CID’s Special Superintendent Mirza Abdullahel Baqui yesterday said they needed time to collect information. The forensic department had collected information from some 50 computers and took them to CID’s IT lab.
“We are investigating who raised the bill to be released, the procedure to release money through several sections and who was to sent the massages. Specially the five texts after which the money were released,” he added.
Hackers got away with $81 million of Bangladesh Bank’s money in one of the largest known electronic heists in history. They succeeded with four requests for moving about $81 million to the Philippines. However, a fifth request for transferring some $20 million to a Sri Lankan account was stopped after they misspelled the recipient’s name.
Sources said investigators were mostly collecting information between January and March 15. Investigators interviewed some 27 members of Swift management. Sources said at least four officials were present on February 4 at the bank.
The central bank filed a case about 40 days after the incident. Sources said the delay made CID’s work time consuming.
Meanwhile, a Bangladesh Bank source said a two-member Swift team suspected the RTGS system installment could have weakened the Swift security system, allowing backdoor to the hackers. They said they had found copy of forex reserve server in some computers used for local online banking through LAN. They suspect the hackers might have manipulated the link.
Meanwhile, the CID is expected to sit with the FBI today at its headquarters. But the time of the meeting could not be known. Baqui said they would seek FBI’s assistance in the case. “Going though the diplomatic channel will be time consuming but FBI can provide us information and save time.”
