Bangladesh’s government has lashed out at the Bangladesh Bank in a rare public split as tensions escalate after hackers stole about US$101 million from its foreign reserves.
Bangladeshi Minister of Finance Abul Maal Abdul Muhith vowed to take action against the central bank after it failed to inform the government immediately when the funds went missing from an account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last month. Other transfers totaling US$850 million were blocked, according to the central bank.
“Bangladesh Bank has the audacity not to inform me,” Muhith told reporters in Dhaka on Sunday. “I am very unhappy about it. The handling of the matter by Bangladesh Bank is very incompetent.”
Photo: Bloomberg
Bangladesh Bank spokesman Subhankar Saha yesterday declined to comment on Muhith’s remarks.
The cyberheist has rattled authorities from Bangladesh to the Philippines, where much of the stolen money ended up. Both governments are cooperating on investigations as they look to figure out how to prevent a similar theft in the future.
Bangladesh is the 20th most cyberattacked country, according to a real time cyberthreat map developed by Kaspersky Lab, an international software security company.
Bangladesh Bank is investigating eight officials who carry out foreign exchange transactions by rotation, according to a Ministry of Finance official who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about the probe. Some of the officials found the central bank’s computer systems inoperative on Feb. 5, a day after the theft, but did not immediately inform their supervisors, the official said.
Some of the transfers were blocked because the hackers spelled the name of one of the recipients incorrectly, according to a person familiar with the investigation who asked not to be identified because he was unauthorized to speak publicly. The central bank said it recovered US$20 million of the stolen funds, and US$81 million is outstanding.
Saha said that Bangladesh Bank has set up a forensic team led by Rakesh Asthana, chief executive officer of World Informatix, a Virginia-based cybersecurity company. FireEye Inc is also involved in the investigation, the company said.
“We cannot disclose any finding of our investigation at this moment as the Federal Reserve Bank and the Philippines is also involved in this whole process,” Saha said.
Muhith last week said that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was responsible for the missing money and planned a legal fight to retrieve the funds. A reserve bank spokeswoman said afterward that instructions to make the payments from the central bank’s account followed protocol and were authenticated by the SWIFT codes system. There were no signs the Fed’s systems were hacked, she said.
“Cyberattacks are not unexpected,” Muhith said on Sunday. “It appears that our protection systems have some flaws.”
The Philippines is cooperating with Bangladesh and is to continue investigating until the funds are recovered, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Teresita Herbosa told reporters in Manila yesterday. Authorities in the Philippines are preparing charges against people involved in the transfer, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Anti-Money Laundering Council chairman Amando Tetangco.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer has reported that the cash might have entered the country via a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp, converted into pesos and deposited in the account of an unidentified Chinese-Filipino businessman who runs a business flying high-net worth gamblers to the Philippines.
Rizal chief executive officer Lorenzo Tan has offered to go on leave during the investigation. He has vowed to cooperate with authorities and condemned “insinuations” that the bank’s management knew about and tolerated the alleged money laundering.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last