The US arm of China’s largest bank said Thursday that it was hit by a ransomware attack, forcing clients to reroute trades and disrupting the US Treasury market.
Ransomware attacks typically access vulnerable computer systems and encrypt or steal data, before sending a ransom note demanding payment in exchange for decrypting the data or not releasing it publicly.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services (ICBC FS) said Thursday it “experienced a ransomware attack that resulted in disruption to certain (financial services) systems.”
“Immediately upon discovering the incident, ICBC FS disconnected and isolated impacted systems to contain the incident,” the New York-based bank said, adding that it was investigating the attack and working on recovery.
ICBC FS said it had successfully cleared US Treasury trades executed Wednesday and repurchasing (repo) financing trades Thursday.
Bloomberg reported that some trades handled by ICBC FS on Thursday were transported across Manhattan on a USB stick as messengers manually relayed required settlement details.
China’s foreign ministry said Friday that “the business systems and office systems of the head…
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