Whoops. Fox News is reporting that the World Bank is smack-dab in the middle of what “may be the worst security breach ever at a global financial institution.” It’s not really clear what exactly has happened but it is clear that this isn’t the first time that the bank has had problems with its cyber security and that some of the more serious past intrusions have come from IP addresses inside China.
Says Fox News:
“It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution’s highly-restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank’s network for nearly a month in June and July.
In total, at least six major intrusions — two of them using the same group of IP addresses originating from China — have been detected at the World Bank since the summer of 2007, with the most recent breach occurring just last month.”
Internal memos are stating that at least 18 servers have been compromised this time around, while an unidentified World Bank director apparently told Fox News that it may be as many 40 servers that have been hit.
In regards to break-ins that happened back in June and July, a senior member of the World Bank’s IT department said “They had access to everything. They had the keys to every room at the bank. And we can’t say whether they still do or don’t until we fully and openly address what’s happening here.”
That seems pretty serious, no? And now this instance that’s just happened is worse than having “the keys to every room at the bank”? Unprecedented crisis, indeed.