|By Matein Khalid| When Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in May 2013, he triggered a bloodbath in emerging markets and a free fall in “fragile five” currencies that included the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah. However, Asian equities markets, while not immune to a Fed rate hike, are far better positioned for higher US dollar interest rates than in 2013, let alone 2007 or 1998. […]
By Tom Bergin | LA HULPE, Belgium LA HULPE, Belgium More than a dozen current and former board directors and senior managers of SWIFT, the bank messaging system that helps transmit billions of dollars around the world every day, have told Reuters that the organisation for years suspected there were weaknesses in the way smaller banks used its messaging terminals – but did not address such vulnerabilities. […]
By Krishna N. Das and Karen Lema | MANILA MANILA Bangladesh’s central bank has said it is withholding findings of investigations into the cyber theft of $81 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to avoid tipping off the “foreign perpetrators” of the hack. Bangladesh Bank lawyer Ajmalul Hossain was responding to comments by Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines […]
UAE. While cybersecurity is one of the most prevalent issues of our time, the resulting impact of a cyber incident is still largely unproven. Recognizing the need of business leaders to have clarity around the enterprise-wide effect of such events, Deloitte the global leader in cyber risk advisory services, released: “Beneath the surface of a cyberattack: A deeper look at business impacts,” a risk-based report outlining the […]
A reported data breach affecting retailers using Oracle’s Micros point-of-sale systems could be linked to a Russian hacking group that stole up to $1 billion from banks in 2014. The attack on Oracle’s computer systems and Micros customer portal first came to light on July 25, according to IT security writer Brian Krebs. That’s when a Micros customer contacted the KrebsOnSecurity blog to report “a potentially large […]
A security guard stands guard outside a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in Paranaque city, Metro Manila, Philippines August 2, 2016. Reuters/Erik De Castro MANILA A Bangladesh central bank team visiting Manila to recover $81 million stolen from its account in New York said it was close to getting back $15 million of the loot frozen by the Philippines, but first has to prove ownership […]
BREMEN, Germany — Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria. He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German […]
SHARJAH // Two men who doused a taxi driver with pepper spray and robbed him have been jailed. The two Arabs were sentenced to six months each after being found guilty of robbing the Sharjah Taxi Company driver in April, spraying him in the eyes to cause temporary blindness before stealing his wallet. Sharjah Criminal Court heard the men stopped the Asian cabbie at midnight in Sharjah […]
DHAKA/NEW YORK Jupiter. That single word, by a stroke of luck, helped stop the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from paying nearly $1 billion (£757 million) to the cyber-criminals behind a notorious bank heist earlier this year, according to sources familiar with the incident. When hackers broke into the computers of Bangladesh’s central bank in February and sent fake payment orders, the Fed was tricked into […]
Two days after reporting that 655,000 healthcare records were found for sale on the dark web, the site DeepDotWeb said today that another insurance database with at least 9.3 million patient records is being shopped around by an anonymous hacker. Over the weekend, a hacker using the name “thedarkoverlord” was offering for sale records taken from databases managed by three healthcare organizations in Missouri, Georgia and the […]
Commuters pass by the front of the Bangladesh central bank building in Dhaka March 8, 2016. Reuters/Ashikur Rahman/File Photo DHAKA Bangladesh’s central bank has ended a contract with U.S. cyber security firm FireEye to investigate February’s online theft of $81 million, turning down a proposal to extend the agreement, a senior official said on Monday. More than four months after hackers broke into the computer systems of […]
Ali was the most thrilling if not the best heavyweight ever, but he was more than the sum of his athletic gifts Ali faces the media at the US federal court in June 1967, while on trial for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces. New York: Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion who helped define his turbulent times as the most charismatic […]
New fatwa matches a view expressed in April by Dubai’s Islamic Affairs & Charitable Activities Department Manama: A Saudi scholar has banned the use of other people’s Wi-Fi without their knowledge, saying that Islam could not tolerate theft. “Taking advantage of the Wi-Fi service illegally or without the knowledge of other beneficiaries or providers is not allowed,” Ali Al Hakami, a […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo DHAKA Bangladesh police are reviewing a nearly forgotten 2013 cyber heist at the nation’s largest commercial bank for connections to February’s $81 million heist at the country’s central bank, a senior law enforcement official said on Wednesday. The unsolved theft of $250,000 at Sonali Bank involved fraudulent transfer requests sent over […]
Entertainer Kanye West arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala (Met Gala) to celebrate the opening of ”Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology” in the Manhattan borough of New York, May 2, 2016. Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Files Kanye West is being sued by a prominent Hungarian rock singer and composer, who accused the hip-hop star of sampling one of his best-known compositions without […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo LONDON/CHICAGO Shortly after 7 p.m. on January 12, 2015, a message from a secure computer terminal at Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador instructed San Francisco-based Wells Fargo to transfer money to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Wells Fargo complied. Over 10 days, Wells approved a total of at least 12 […]
Concerns about identity theft, financial fraud and business or government tracking are creating a “chilling effect” on online commerce and free expression, according to analysis of data from a 2015 survey of Internet use conducted for the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Of the 41,000 households asked about privacy and security in the July 2015 U.S. Census Bureau survey for the NTIA, 19 […]
Commuters pass by the front of the Bangladesh central bank building in Dhaka March 8, 2016. Reuters/Ashikur Rahman/Files DHAKA A Bangladesh government-appointed panel investigating the theft of $81 million from the country’s central bank has found that SWIFT, the international banking payments network, committed a number of mistakes in connecting up a local network, the panel head said on Sunday. “We have shown that SWIFT […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo SWIFT, the global financial messaging network that banks use to move billions of dollars every day, warned on Thursday of a second malware attack similar to the one that led to February’s $81 million cyber heist at the Bangladesh central bank. The second case targeted a commercial bank, SWIFT spokeswoman Natasha […]
We use them every day, and they’re crucially important — yet, far too often we’re lazy and careless about them. Passwords, and the importance of keeping them secure, are once again in the news after word emerged Wednesday of a data breach that put more than 272 million passwords and account credentials at risk. Milwaukee-based cybersecurity firm Hold Security reported that a Russian hacker had offered a […]
By RICK GLADSTONE April 25, 2016 Iran said on Monday that it would seek to sue the United States at the International Court of Justice at The Hague to prevent the distribution of nearly $2 billion in impounded assets from Iran’s central bank to compensate American victims of overseas attacks. Distribution of the impounded assets, which the United States Supreme Court validated in a decision last week, has enraged […]
A general view shows the building ‘Gorod Stolits’ (Capital City) (C), which houses an office of 25 Floor Film Company, at the Moscow International Business Center also known as ”Moskva-City”, in Moscow, Russia, February 3, 2016. Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev WASHINGTON Russian authorities in November raided offices associated with a Moscow film distribution and production company as part of a crackdown on one of the world’s most notorious financial […]
The trend of cyberattackers targeting retail and fast-food chains is continuing in 2016. Nationwide fast-food chain Wendy’s is the latest to announce it is investigating a possible credit card breach stemming from its POS (point-of-sale) system. “Reports indicate fraudulent charges may have occurred elsewhere after payment cards were legitimately used at some restaurants,” Wendy’s spokesman Bob Bertini told Reuters. “Until this investigation is completed, it is difficult […]
Did you know that over 20 million people a year are victims of human trafficking? That’s according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. What if banning smartphone encryption could stem the rising tide of human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery from which perpetrators force victims to engage in commercial labor services or sex acts against their will? Sacramento County Assembly member Jim Cooper just introduced […]
