The U.S. division of Chinese bank ICBC hit by cyberattack
The U.S. financial services division of the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was targeted in a cyberattack that reportedly disrupted the trading of Treasurys. ICBC, which is the world’s largest lender by assets, confirmed that its financial services arm experienced a ransomware attack, leading to disruption of certain systems. Following the discovery of the hack, ICBC isolated the impacted systems to contain the incident.
Ransomware, a type of cyberattack that involves hackers taking control of systems or information and demanding a ransom for their release, has become increasingly popular among bad actors in recent years. ICBC did not disclose the identity of the attackers but stated that it is conducting a thorough investigation and working with law enforcement to progress its recovery efforts with the support of information security experts.
The Chinese bank also noted that it successfully cleared U.S. Treasury trades executed on Wednesday and Repo financing trades carried out on Thursday, despite multiple news outlets reporting disruptions to U.S. Treasury trades. The ransomware attack prevented the ICBC division from settling Treasury trades on behalf of other market participants, as reported by The Financial Times, citing traders and banks.
In response to the cyberattack, the U.S. Treasury Department stated, “We are aware of the cybersecurity issue and are in regular contact with key financial sector participants, in addition to federal regulators. We continue to monitor the situation.” ICBC clarified that the email and business systems of its U.S. financial services arm operate independently of ICBC’s China operations and that the systems of its head office, the ICBC New York branch, and other domestic and overseas affiliated institutions were not affected by the cyberattack.
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