North Korea Suspected Of $81 Million Bank Cyberheist
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NEW YORK (CBSMiami) -- North Korea may have played a role in one of the biggest bank heists of all time. The cyber theft happened last February. Thieves possibly linked to North Korea stole $81 million from Bangladesh's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Investigators are trying to determine if North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Un is behind the theft.
Investigators say evidence could connect North Korea to the cyber theft.
Sources tell CBS News the codes used by hackers in last February's bank heist are similar to those used in the cyber-attack against Sony Pictures in 2014, which investigators have connected to North Korea.
NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett told a cyber security panel this week that, if confirmed, the link would be significant.
"That means a nation state is robbing banks. That is a big deal in my opinion," said Ledgett.
In this latest attack, hackers used a global payment messaging system called "SWIFT". The virtual messenger helps some 11 thousand financial institutions communicate to transfer money. Once hackers gained access to the system, they were able to create messages instructing the federal bank of New York to release the money from the Bangladesh bank accounts.
Eric Chien is a technical director with security vendor Symantec, which investigated the crime.
"We're reasonably confident the Bangladesh attacks are tied to the attacks that happened at Sony. So we can say that this is definitely the same group or group of people who had access to those same tools," explained Chien.
The FBI says the 2014 Sony hack was carried out by North Korea apparently in retaliation over the film "The Interview" which mocked the nation's leader, Kim Jong-Un. While no formal charges have been brought against North Korea, security experts are paying close attention to this case.
"This group remains active and these attacks on these banks are just the first step. We clearly see them coming after other banks including U.S. banks in the future," said Chien.
Chien went on to say the attackers actually tried to transfer a billion dollars, but because of some typos and other mistakes, they only succeeded in taking $81-million. He warns we can expect hackers to improve their tools and potentially go after even bigger targets.