CASE STUDY TOPIC: Bangladesh SWIFT Bank heist
The fast pace of digitalization of the financial services has given a great surge to the level of
efficiency, but, it has also placed important infrastructures under threats of cyber-attacks of never-
seen-before sizes. The February 2016 Bangladesh Bank SWIFT heist is one such landmark case that
exemplifies how advanced adversaries can also use weak internal systems to steal into their trusted
global financial systems. In this attack, the attackers had access to the internal systems of Bangladesh
Bank and this was done with the help of phishing, malware, as well as weak point of endpoint
security. After they got access to the system, they escalated privileges, accessed the SWIFT Alliance
Access software without authorization and produce 35 illicit transfer instructions totalling to 951
million dollars on the bank account at Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In spite of the blocking of
most transactions, there was successful transfer and laundering of the money amounting to a huge
$81 million making recovery very tasking.
This theft was also specifically threatening since the SWIFT system did not directly get breached, but
instead attackers took advantage of its lax security at one member bank. The intrusion was not
noticed within days and this was because of mismanipulated printers outputs, modified transaction
logs, and a lax monitoring system. The breach was identified not sooner than when some anomalies
occurred such as a non-functional SWIFT printer and a transfer request that had a spelling error
reported. The incident demonstrated key systemic vulnerabilities related to cybersecurity in the
financial sphere such as a lack of network segmentation, failure to employ multiple-factor
authentication capabilities, old software systems, and absence information anomaly detection in
real-time.
The given case study examines the methods applied by intruders, their motives of the attack and its
monetary and reputational impacts. It also deals with measures that were taken against it, like the
implementation of SWIFT Customer Security Program (CSP), mandatory penetration testing, tougher
final endpoint security, anomaly-based transaction monitoring, and the promotion of more effective
access controls to member banks.
The research outcome is that Bangladesh Bank heist represents a stark warning to global financial
community: no matter how secure international systems are, their security is only as strong as their
weakest link. It highlights the requirement to defense-in-depth strategies, constant monitoring,
timely patch administration as well as intercontinental collaboration to directly stop more extensive
financial cybercrimes. The incident not only transformed the whole global banking security standards
but also underlined that Cybersecurity for financial sector is an indispensable element for
maintaining public confidence, stability and resilience in financial system of the world.
