Giant Chinese Bank ICBC in US Attacked by Tech Hackers – 1 hour ago

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The Chinese bank, ICBC, which operates in the United States (US) was hit by a ransomware attack. This incident disrupted trade in the US on Thursday (9/11/2023).

ICBC said that its financial services arm, called ICBC Financial Services, suffered a ransomware attack that resulted in disruption to certain systems.

Immediately after learning of the hack, ICBC isolated the affected systems to address the incident.

Ransomware is a type of cyber attack. This involves hackers taking control of a system or information and only releasing it after the victim pays a ransom. This type of crime is an attack that has rapidly increased in popularity among cybercriminals in recent years.

ICBC did not reveal who was behind the attack, but only said that it was conducting a thorough investigation and continuing its recovery efforts with the support of a professional team consisting of information security experts.

The state-owned bank also said it was cooperating with law enforcement. ICBC has successfully completed US Treasury trades executed on Wednesday and repo financing trades executed on Thursday.

However, several news outlets reported disruptions to US Treasury trading. The Financial Times, citing traders and banks, said Friday that the ransomware attack prevented ICBC from settling Treasury trades on behalf of other market participants.

“We are aware of cyber security issues and are in regular contact with key players in the financial sector, in addition to federal regulators. We continue to monitor the situation,” said the US Treasury Department, quoted from CNBC International, Saturday (11/11/2023).

ICBC said the U.S. financial services branch’s email and business systems operate independently of ICBC’s operations in China.

The head office system, ICBC New York branch and other affiliated institutions at home and abroad were not affected by the cyber attack. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that ICBC was trying to minimize the impact and losses after this attack.

Speaking at a regular press conference, Wang said ICBC has paid great attention to the issue and has handled the emergency response and supervision well.

To date, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack and ICBC has not said who might be behind the attack.

In the world of cyber security, finding out who is behind a cyber attack is often very difficult because hackers usually use any means to mask their location and identity. But there are clues about what type of software was used to carry out the attack.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

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