City Union Bank Cyber Attack – Nearly $2 Million Transferred Illegally via SWIFT system

City Union Bank Cyber Attack – cybercriminals attempted transferring nearly $2 million overseas, through the SWIFT platform( Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) that used by Financial institutions to secure communication and to transfer instruction via the standardized system of codes.

City Union Bank issued a statement on cyberattack this weekend, during their reconciliation process they identified unauthorized transactions were initiated by the cybercriminals and bank effectively managed to block two out of three transactions.

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In a Phone interview with Reuters, “Chief Executive Officer N. Kamakodi called it a “conspiracy” involving multiple countries, and added the lender was still investigating how it had happened.“This is basically a cyber attack by international cyber criminals”.

“During our reconciliation process on February 7, it was found out that 3 fraudulent remittances had gone through our SWIFT system to our correspondent banks which were not initiated from our bank’s end. We immediately alerted the correspondent banks to recall the funds,” reads CUB statement.

City Union Bank Cyber Attack – unauthorized transactions

Cyber criminal initiated three unauthorized transactions for about nearly $2 Million, the root cause of the issue is still unclear.

1. The First transaction was about $500,000, made through Standard Chartered Bank, New York, to a Dubai based bank and the transaction was blocked immediately at CUB end.

2. Next transaction is for about 300,000 euros ($372,150) was routed through Standard Chartered Bank account in Frankfurt to a Turkish bank account. With the second transaction funds locked in Turkish bank.

3. And The Third transaction was about $1 million that was made through Bank of America to a Chinese bank and the transaction as claimed by submitting fake documents. According to Reuters Kamakodi on Sunday identified the bank as Zhejiang Rural Credit Cooperative Union in Hangzhou, China.

With the help of Ministry of External Affairs through Consulate General of Shanghai and Istanbul and the office of the National Cyber Security Council (PMO), all possible efforts through diplomatic and legal channels are being taken to repatriate the money Reads CUB statement.