LockBit hacks the world’s largest credit institution – data can only be sent via USB stick Nintendo has the console that just won’t die

An American subsidiary of the largest Chinese bank ICBC has fallen victim to a hacker attack. As New York-based ICBC Financial Services announced on its website on Thursday evening (local time), it has been dealing with the consequences of a ransomware attack since Wednesday. This attack resulted in an outage of key systems.

According to multiple reports, the Russian ransomware gang LockBit is behind the attack – the most active criminal organization in this area for years.

Largest credit institution in the world

The collapse, which became known on Thursday at the world’s largest credit institution in terms of total assets, prevented the settlement of a number of financial market transactions and forced brokers and traders to divert their trades. As reported on X (Twitter), important data had to be transported by couriers via a USB stick.

“This is a real shock,” Bloomberg quotes the founder of Swedish cybersecurity company Truesec, Marcus Murray. It’s the type of high-profile attack that is prompting major banks around the world to improve their defenses.

ICBC Financial Services contained the incident by separating and isolating the affected systems, the report said. The systems ran independently of ICBC’s in China.

US government bond market hit

As the Financial Times reported, citing market participants, the attack meant that trades for other market participants could not be executed. The attack also affected the liquidity of the US Treasury market to some extent, but not the functionality of the market as a whole.

In January 2023, LockBit hacked Britain’s Royal Mail and halted international mail, Bloomberg recalls. Less than a month later, it hit a British fintech company and a global derivatives business. But Japan’s largest port has also been paralyzed and aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. has been affected. The Japanese company Shimano was recently hit.

Ransomware refers to malicious programs that limit or completely block access to data and systems. A ransom is usually required for release. Some of the most dangerous ransomware gangs have resorted to stealing as much valuable data as possible and then blackmailing their victims by threatening to leak the data on the dark web.

Sources

(dsc/sda/dpa)