A Single Typo Costs Bank Hackers a Billion

Unidentified hackers in February gained access to the networks of the Bangladesh central bank, attempting to transfer large sums of money to accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka from an account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The hackers managed to successfully fulfil four online transfers totaling some $81 million without detection before a simple typographical error raised a red flag with bank security staff.

The illicit transfers were discovered when the hackers attempted a $20 million transfer to a Sri Lankan non-governmental organization called the Shalika Foundation. Staff at Deutsche Bank spotted a spelling mistake in the NGO's name and contacted the Bangladeshis, seeking clarification.

Meanwhile, the Fed had alerted the Bangladeshis when they detected a suspiciously high number of payment instructions and transfer requests to private entities. As a result, some $850 million to $870 million in remaining transactions were canceled.

Bangladeshi officials told reporters they would not be able to recover money that has already been transferred. They believe the funds were subsequently directed to casinos, once they reached the Philippines.

The hackers, responsible for one of the largest known online bank heists in history, have not been caught. Investigators of the Bangladeshi hack suggest that the attackers were foreigners who had been spying on bank staff.

Last year, Russian computer security company Kaspersky Lab reported  that, within a two-year period, some $1 billion was stolen from as many as 100 financial institutions via criminal electronic transfers.