IMF hacking: Hackers growing bolder?

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) computer system was hacked with large and sophisticated cyberattack and confidential data on national economies and finances are at the risk of exposure. The organization did not disclose the nature of the attack.

According to an unnamed official quoted by the New York Times, the breach was a very major one and it had been taking place over the last several months.

David Hawley, IMF spokesman, said, I can confirm that we are investigating an incident. I am not in a position to elaborate further on the extent of the cyber security incident.

The organization is managing financial crises that happened in all over the world and deals with highly confidential information.

The IMF attack was clearly designed to infiltrate the IMF with the intention of gaining sensitive 'insider privileged information', Reuters quoted cyber security specialist Mohan Koo, who is also Managing Director of Dtex Systems, as saying.

The incident occurred before May 14, when IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss- Kahn got arrested after being accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.

“The Fund is fully functional,” Hawley said on Saturday in a statement.

An e-mail sent from Chief Information Officer Jonathan Palmer to employees on June 8 said that “Last week we detected some suspicious file transfers, and the subsequent investigation established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems”. In the same day the fund told employees that they would replace their RSA SecurID tokens.

The World Bank disconnected the system link between the IMF though there is no exchange of corresponding financial information. The two organization located next to each other in Washington D.C. work closely on macro economics of the world.

The IMF website stopped updating after June 10.

The IMF has 187 countries members with headquarter located in Washington, D.C. United States. It was conceived in July 1944 originally with 45 members. IMF aims to oversee the global financial system.

The IMF hacking is the latest of the cyberattacks launched on major organizations.

Recently hackers stole 100 million customer accounts from Sony PlayStation Network. Last week Google confirmed that hackers from China had tried to access Gmail accounts of government officials of United States. About 200,000 credit card information of Citibank has been hacked into also.