It is not the first time that a Nepal Based Organization is hacked, several Government and Non-Government servers and websites are hacked and yet another Bank has been hacked – NIC Asia. Billions worth of Money might be transferred on the attack by the Unknown hackers.
The attack on NIC Asia bank was made on Laxmi Pooja when all the banking institution was closed on Nepali Festival Tihar. “Server was down for 2/3 days and we took it as downtime but later it came into our attention that it was Hacked, We have recovered the Server”- A Official of Bank stated. The SWIFT Code Credentials of NICA Asia was compromised which was used to make the payment. SWIFT Code is a unique identifier issued to banks for making payments and communicating with each other.
Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has conformed the cyber theft that took place on the eve of Laxmi Pooja, when all the banks and central monetary authority remain closed. The bank officials has still not been able to figure out the amount of money that has been illegally transferred through several small transaction. It is reported that the concerned authority has already written to Central Banks of other countries where money was transferred for the cancellation of the transaction.
It is still not clear how much money has been transferred from Nepali Banks. But the bank officials has estimated it to be around 40 Crore. But it is also said that it closely resembles the biggest ever cyber hack that took place in Bangladesh. NIC Asia officials also said that it won’t affect the normal customers.
With the Hack of NIC Asia – Bankers Association of Nepal has told its fellow members to take serious precautions to avoid such upcoming events.
We have seen many such events namely ATM Spoofing, online credentials hack, etc. I know that there is no system that is vulnerability free but these attacks can be minimized or avoided. Like, in this case, the Server was down for 2/3 days, it is a long period of downtime. The IT department could have checked what is wrong instead of taking it normally. If they would have checked maybe this hack would have been avoided. All this kind of hacks has been possible due to minor negligence.
Now every Government and Non-Government organization must take due actions to avoid such further attacks.
