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The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) suffered a ‘ransomware’ cyber attack that affected some of its financial services systems in the United States, the entity reported in a statement. The Treasury Department clarified that the incident “minimally” affected the bond market.
The computer systems of ICBC Financial Services, which operates on the New York Stock Exchange on behalf of the world’s largest bank by asset size, were isolated this Friday from the rest of Wall Street.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) acknowledged having been the victim of a ‘ransomware’ attack (malicious software that encrypts data), information that was later confirmed by Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Asian country.
His departure was not traumatic for the market thanks to the fact that alternative systems were implemented to allow his transactions, which involved moving information manually, even through USB drives, the Reuters agency reported.
United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the impact was minimal in the bond market, where this bank acts as a broker, that is, it helps negotiate government securities.
Stealing data to demand money: an increasingly used modality
The cybercriminal group called Lockbit, which claimed responsibility for the attack, has managed to hack some of the largest organizations in the world in recent months, in a growing modality that consists of stealing and threatening to leak confidential data if a ransom is not paid. .
Born in 2020, it has become the world’s leading ransomware threat, according to US officials. In that country alone, it has managed to affect more than 1,700 American organizations in almost every industry, ranging from financial services and food to schools, transportation and government departments.
Among its most recent victims is aerospace and defense giant Boeing.
The cyber criminal gang infects the organizations system and then forces them to pay ransom to decrypt or unlock them. This type of ransom is usually demanded in the form of cryptocurrency, which is harder to trace and provides anonymity to the recipient.
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