February 2016 marks the infamous Bangladesh Bank heist.
On 4 February, hackers broke into the bank's system and attempted to steal over $1 billion.
They used malware to exploit the SWIFT messaging network.
SWIFT - Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication - is a secure network that banks use to communicate and transfer money around the world. Each bank has unique codes and credentials to verify transactions.
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The unknown hackers managed to send dozens of fraudulent money transfer requests to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They requested millions of the Bangladesh Bank's funds to be moved to bank accounts in other parts of Asia.
Targeting the bank's automated transaction printer, the attack was described as a technical glitch by the bank staff and looked nothing more than a paper jam.
It was not until after the weekend, on the following Monday afternoon, that the bank’s main server was fixed and officials could stop the payments to the six banks.
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But by that time, it was too late.
The hackers successfully stole $81 million before the operation was detected. They sent to Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation in the Philippines via four different transfer requests and an additional $20 million sent to Pan Asia Banking. Fortunately, the Bangladesh Bank managed to halt $850 million in other transactions.
Ultimately, it was the printer error that helped uncover the heist. The SWIFT system automatically printed records of each transaction, and when the bank workers arrived on February 5, the printer tray was empty.
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They couldn’t print reports manually, and the software soon showed that an important file was missing.
When they finally got the software working the next day and were able to restart the printer, dozens of suspicious transactions spit out.
The attackers had timed their heist so well over a weekend that communication between Bangladesh and New York couldn't be made - giving the attackers plenty of time for the transfer to complete without getting caught.
It wasn't until Monday that bank workers in Bangladesh finally learned that four of the transactions had gone through amounting to $101 million.
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This heist ultimately went down as one of the most successful cyberattacks in history. But the real question is why so many of these heists go unnoticed.
Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It, previously stated: 'We were told cybersecurity is so good you cannot do that. But of course you can. The question is how many other incidents were there that we don’t know about?'