Malaysia central bank attacked by hackers, Philippine banks on alert

Hackers sought to steal money using fraudulent wire transfers at the Malaysian bank, its governor said on March 30. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has said no funds were lost in the incident, which involved falsified wire-transfer requests over the SWIFT bank messaging network.

Bank Negara did not say who was behind the hack or how they accessed its SWIFT servers. The central bank, which supervises 45 commercial banks in Malaysia, said there was no disruption to other payment and settlement systems the central bank operates because of the cyber-attack.

In February 2016, the Philippine financial system was thrown into the global spotlight after USD 81 million that was stolen from Bangladesh central bank was channelled into several accounts at Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC), before disappearing into the local casino industry.

The Bangladesh heist led financial institutions around the globe to bolster security. There is no word on who was responsible and Dhaka has been able to retrieve only about USD 15 million.