WASHINGTON: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) said on Thursday (Nov 9) it experienced a ransomware attack that resulted in the disruption of certain FS systems.
“Immediately upon discovering the incident, ICBC FS disconnected and isolated impacted systems to contain the incident,” ICBC said in a statement.
ICBC is China’s largest commercial lender by assets.
Earlier on Thursday, the US Treasury Department said a ransomware attack on ICBC disrupted some trades in the US Treasury market, although the impact on the market was unclear.
In ransomware attacks, hackers encrypt an organisation's systems and demand ransom payments in exchange for unlocking them. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
While ransomware attacks have been soaring across a range of sectors in recent years, they have rarely disrupted a major financial market. Thursday’s incident is likely to raise questions over market participants’ cyber security controls and potentially draw regulatory scrutiny.
The Financial Times reported earlier on Thursday that the US Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma) told members that ICBC had been hit by ransomware that disrupted the US Treasury market by preventing it from settling trades on behalf of other market players.
“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,” a Treasury spokesperson said in a response to a question about the Financial Times report.
“In general, the event had a limited impact on the market,” said Scott Skrym, executive vice-president for fixed income and repo at broker-dealer Curvature Securities.
Sifma declined to comment. – Reuters
