This week the largest bank in the world by deposits, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) endured a hacking attack which reportedly disrupted US Treasury trading, which led to the bank being forced to use a USB stick to complete settlements.
On Thursday, the ICBC revealed that it had seen several systems disrupted in its financial services unit, following a ransomware attack.
According to media reports, this resulted in the bank having to perform settlements via a courier who transported a USB stick with the relevant information to impacted parties
The bank noted that US Treasury trades on Wednesday were “successfully cleared.” However there were numerous reports which stated there were disruptions, and market participants noted that there were effects on liquidity.
Marcus Murray, founder of Swedish cybersecurity firm Truesec, said, “This is a true shock to large banks around the world. The ICBC hack will make large banks around the globe race to improve their defenses, starting today.”
According to the most recent filing with US regulators, at the end of 2022 the unit had $23.5 billion in assets.
Ransomware is a form of attack which usually begins when an employee at a targeted institution opens a phishing email which appears to be legitimate and clicks on a link within it, or attempts to open an attached file. The file will allow the hackers to either take control of the network, or it begins to automatically encrypt all data on the network. The software then will give the affected parties instructions on how to make contact with the hackers to arrange payment, and in return the hackers will return access to the network to the affected party.
Because hackers utilizing ransomware attacks usually demand their payment in cryptocurrency to take advantage of the anonymity of such transactions, Chinese banks have historically not been targeted, given China has banned all crypto-related transactions.
So far the ICBC attack has not seen any party claim responsibility for it, nor has the Chinese bank given any idea who might be the culpable party, if it knows.
Ransomware attacks have increased 50 percent over the last year, according to data analytics firm Chainalysis, with this year seeing $500 million in payments handed out as of the end of September.
