US government 'hacked global bank system'

A huge range of security exploits, said to be
worth over $2m if sold on the black market,
have been leaked online.
The tools are said to have been created by the
US National Security Agency (NSA), and
accompanying documents appear to indicate a
possible breach of the Swift global banking
system.
Such a hack could have enabled the US to
covertly monitor financial transactions,
researchers said.
The files were released by Shadow Brokers, a
hacking group that has previously leaked
malware .
If genuine, it represents perhaps the most
significant exposure of NSA files since the Edward
Snowden leaks in 2013.
On Twitter, Mr Snowden described it as the
"Mother Of All Exploits" - a reference to a bomb
recently used by the US military in Afghanistan .
Multiple experts have said this latest "data
dump" is credible - though the institutions
implicated have dismissed the claims, or refused
to comment.
Swift, which is headquartered in Belgium, said:
"We have no evidence to suggest that there has
ever been any unauthorised access to our
network or messaging services."
The BBC is not able to verify the authenticity of
the files - and the NSA has not commented on
the leak.
Swift was successfully targeted by hackers last
year when criminals stole $81m from the
Bangladeshi central bank.
Watching the Middle East
Swift is a network that allows global banks to
move money around the world.
In the Swift network, smaller banks often make
use of service bureaus to handle transactions on
their behalf. Documents included in the leak
suggest at least one major bureau, EastNets, may
have been compromised.
"If you hack the service bureau, it means that you
also have access to all of their clients, all of the
banks," said Matt Suiche, founder of the United
Arab Emirates-based cybersecurity firm Comae
Technologies, speaking to Reuters.
Headquartered in Dubai, EastNets has clients in
Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Qatar.
Spreadsheets published by Shadow Brokers
appeared to list banks that had been breached
with "implants" - secret data-gathering software.
Cris Thomas, a security researcher with Tenable,
said analysis of the leaked files suggested the US
government had the capability "to monitor, if not
disrupt, financial transactions to terrorists
groups".
In a statement on Friday, EastNets strongly
denied the claims.
"The reports of an alleged hacker-compromised
EastNets Service Bureau network is totally false
and unfounded," a spokesperson said.
"The EastNets Network Internal Security Unit has
run a complete check of its servers and found no
hacker compromise or any vulnerabilities.
"The photos shown on Twitter, claiming
compromised information, is about pages that are
outdated and obsolete, generated on a low-level
internal server that is retired since 2013."
Windows threat
The files contained several "zero day" exploits -
vulnerabilities that were previously unknown to
the companies that create the software, or the
security community at large.
The zero-days targeted Windows machines,
though researchers said none in the cache would
be effective against the latest version, Windows
10.
That said, multiple experts said the sheer number
of zero days released at the same time was
unprecedented. One researcher, speaking to Vice,
said the exploits would have been worth more
than $2m if sold privately .
In January, a Twitter account believed to be run
by the group announced an auction of the
exploits , but it appears the group did not find any
buyers. The NSA is now facing criticism for not
sharing details of the exploits with Microsoft once
it became clear the tools were in the hands of a
hacking group.
Microsoft said in a statement to the BBC that it
was "reviewing the report and will take the
necessary actions to protect our customers".