BOT tells banks to tighten IT security
The Bank of Thailand yesterday asked all commercial banks to tighten IT security and be ready to cope with any invasion of their online services, while continuing close monitoring.
Recently, some commercial banks received an email from an unknown person from a foreign country, threatening to target their network and overwhelm their online services with traffic, which could affect their Internet services.
Tongurai Limpiti, a deputy governor at the central bank, said the central bank and commercial banks focused on risks to the information technology system of each commercial bank, adhering to customer data security and precision, and a system ready for continuous use.
The central bank also asked all commercial banks to have measures in place if such a situation arises so as to lessen the impact on their customers.
Four Thai banks received an email from an anonymous group, demanding payment in Bitcoins and threatening cyberattacks, a source from the IT industry said on Wednesday.
The hacker group called itself “Armada Collective”, the source said.
Nothing happened today, an executive of one of the banks said on Wednesday.
Swiss hosting providers reportedly received a similar threat in September. In the email, the group demanded payment of 20 Bitcoins (approximately US$6,000 or Bt210,000). It also specified the deadline and said if payment was not made by then, the hosting providers would see all servers crashed. The payment rate would go up by 20 Bitcoins every day, it warned.
In the email, it also instructed the receivers not to contact the media or they would face permanent attacks.
The Thai Bankers Association, which was expected to issue a statement on the hacker matter on Wednesday evening, has made no move so far.
Meanwhile, only one commercial bank revealed that it had received an email threatening its online service.
In a related development, the Education Ministry website has also been attacked by hackers, the latest among Thai state agencies to be targeted. Education Minister Dapong Ratanasuwan yesterday said the attack took place on Wednesday night and the problem had been solved.
Earlier, the websites of the Information and Communication Technology Ministry and Defence Ministry were targeted in a hacker attack.
