The Philippine central bank’s policymaking Monetary Board has approved further expansion of the cybersecurity division of its supervision and examination sector, bank Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla said on Saturday.
The action comes amid reports that more banks have fallen victim to cyberattacks that involved the use of fraudulent SWIFT messages, the same technique at the heart of February’s massive theft from Bangladesh Bank.
Espenilla, who is in charge of banking supervision at the central bank, also said regulators were looking at tightening regulations for remittance companies and money changers, and regulating virtual currencies to boost efforts to combat money laundering.
The Philippine central bank has revoked the license of Philrem Service Corp, a remittance company that anti-money laundering investigators said was used to transfer a significant portion of the US$81 million hackers looted from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council issued a complaint against Philrem on April 28, accusing it of creating a fog around transactions to cover up the laundering of the stolen funds via a web of transfers and currency conversions through Philippine bank accounts, before moving the cash through casinos in Manila and junket operators.
Philrem has denied any wrongdoing and has appealed the ruling.
Meanwhile, the US Congress has launched an inquiry into computer security at the Federal Reserves after a reported series of breaches in recent years, including hacking and potential espionage.
In a letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Friday, a US House of Representatives committee requested the central bank provide full information about more than 50 cyberbreaches between 2011 and last year reported recently by the media.
The incidents ranged from hackers using malicious code or software to try to enter the Fed’s systems, to unauthorized persons accessing data.
“These reports raise serious concerns about the Federal Reserve’s cybersecurity posture, including its ability to prevent threats from compromising highly sensitive financial information housed on the agency’s systems,” US House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith wrote.
Smith requested the Fed’s cybersecurity team, the National Incident Response Team, to produce all related documents “in unredacted form.”
Smith cited in the letter a report from last week on the breaches, based on redacted internal Fed records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
He said the committee wants to know how the team responds to security incidents and works to protect its information.
Data stored by the Fed “could be extremely valuable in the hands of foreign governments and those who seek to threaten the stability of the US financial system,” he said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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