CYBER ATTACKS THREAT CENTRAL BANKS AROUND THE WORLD

Cybercriminals mostly target two things, Data and Money – Data has also been used as the source to get money as it has been proved to be very resourceful and organisations tend to buy data which are stolen from other organisation for different reasons.

Banks have been targeted by cybercriminals of late – Not long ago Central bank of Bangladesh falls to victim of the cyber-attacks and US $ 80 Million were stolen by cybercriminals.

Some of the contributing factors in the US $80 million theft from the Bangladesh central bank included the use of inexpensive, second-hand routers and the lack of a firewall. In addition, an investigation conducted by BAE Systems suggests the attackers tricked the SWIFT financial software with custom malware.

Cyber-attacks did not end to Central bank of Bangladesh – Greek central bank site was also attacked by cybercriminals some days back. It looks like this has become a serious problem especially when the website of the Central Bank of Cyprus briefly came under cyber-attack, days after a hacking collective said it conducted a similar attack on the Greek central bank's site.

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TAKE NOTE: It’s no longer enough to blindly implement a cybersecurity strategy and simply hope that you’re safe. These solutions must be tested to examine how they hold up against a dedicated attack.

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The central bank's website came under "some form of a denial-of-service" attack, a spokeswoman said on Friday, via email.

She did not say when the attack occurred, but several on-line news sites covering cyber security said it came on Thursday. The bank could not be reached to verify the date.

The attack "... resulted in some delays in user connections, but generally the website could handle the anticipated number of users for the day," the spokeswoman said.

Greece's central bank was attacked by the hacking group Anonymous on Tuesday, which disrupted service on its web site, a Bank of Greece official said on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear whether Anonymous was behind the attack on the Cypriot central bank. But in a video posted on YouTube, the group said the attack on the Bank of Greece marked the start of a 30-day campaign against central banks around the world.

End of last month, we met in Nairobi discussion the fraud challenges facing our mobile financial services and provide an insight of how these financial institutions need to fight cybercrimes.

Approximately 5% cost to revenues, fraud not only results in financial loss to customers or a mobile money services provider, but it also damages the reputation of the service to the customer and risks the reputation of the industry as a whole. As such, mitigating the risk of Fraud is a primary objective in a robust risk management strategy.

Ultimately, all Banks and mobile financial services providers must decide which is more profitable, fighting fraud internally or hiring a third party expert allowing them to focus on their main business. Either way, the organisation must be fully aware of their vulnerabilities and the best ways to address them to mitigate fraud.