Ransomware attack on China's biggest bank disrupts Treasury market trades, reports say

A financial services business of China's biggest bank says it was it by a ransomware attack that reportedly disrupted trading in the U.S. Treasury market

Published - November 10, 2023 11:19 am IST - BEIJING

Bank tellers sit in a branch office of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Hong Kong on March 27, 2013. A financial services business of China’s biggest bank says it was hit by a ransomware attack that reportedly disrupted trading in the U.S. Treasury market.

Bank tellers sit in a branch office of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Hong Kong on March 27, 2013. A financial services business of China’s biggest bank says it was hit by a ransomware attack that reportedly disrupted trading in the U.S. Treasury market. | Photo Credit: AP

A financial services business of China’s biggest bank says it was it by a ransomware attack that reportedly disrupted trading in the U.S. Treasury market.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services handles trades and other services for financial institutions. A statement on its website seen Friday said the ransomware attack this week disrupted some of its systems but that it had disconnected parts of the affected systems to limit the impact from the attack.

The company, which is based in New York, said it was investigating and had reported the problem to law enforcement.

All Treasury trades executed Wednesday and repo financing trades on Thursday were cleared, it said. It said ICBC’s banking, email and other systems were not affected.

The company gave no further details but reports said the attack was by LockBit, a Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate that does not target former Soviet countries. It is one of the most efficient ransomware variants around, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Active since September 2019, it has attacked thousands of organizations.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.