Bangladesh central bank governor quits over $81 mn heist

Zee Media Bureau

Dhaka: Bangladesh`s central bank governor Atiur Rahman resigned on Tuesday, after hackers stole $81 million from the nation`s foreign reserves in an audacious cyber-heist that has hugely embarrassed the government.

Unknown hackers breached the computer systems of Bangladesh Bank and transferred $81 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to casinos in the Philippines between February 4 and February 5.

The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and stole its credentials for payment transfers. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with nearly three dozen requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank's account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organization was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation.

Hackers misspelled "foundation" in the NGO's name as "fandation", prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction.

With Agency Inputs