Bangladesh Bank has issued an alert to all scheduled banks, financial institutions, and payment service providers regarding a significant increase in cyber attacks targeting the banking sector.
The warning follows routine information security monitoring by the Bangladesh Cyber Security Intelligence (BCSI), which revealed that some banks have suffered illegal transactions linked to the use of Facebook Ad Manager on dual-currency cards, impacting ordinary customers nationwide, according to a recent advisory.
The advisory highlights the growing activity of cybercriminals on social media, who are relentlessly harassing the public and bank customers alike. This surge in cyber attacks is not confined to Bangladesh; it reflects a global trend of escalating cyber threats, particularly in the banking sector, where malware attacks have become alarmingly frequent.
Bangladesh Bank has urged banks to implement several urgent measures to safeguard against these cyber threats, including information sharing, enhanced verification, the use of one-time passwords (OTP), two-factor/multi-factor authentication, and limiting the number of login attempts, among others.
The bank has called for prompt action from all financial institutions concerning the outlined risks. The Director (ICT) of the Information and Communication Technology Department at Bangladesh Bank is expected to oversee the implementation of these measures, as stated in the advisory.
