National Bank of Pakistan (NBP)

History

2021: Hacker attack

On the night of November 29-30, 2021, the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) survived a cyber attack. It affected server systems and servers used to connect bank branches, the internal infrastructure that controls the ATM network, and the bank's mobile applications.

Some systems were disabled due to the attack, but the funds remained intact, according to bank officials and sources familiar with the investigation.

On November 30 and 31, 2021, specialists were engaged in the restoration of affected systems, and by Monday, November 1, more than 1000 branches of the bank opened and received customers as usual. Also, the operation of ATMs was completely restored throughout Pakistan.

Although the bank provided all the details of the attack, the news of the hack scared many customers who rushed to ATMs on Monday to withdraw their money. This fact, as well as inaccurate reports by Pakistani media that nine banks were allegedly attacked, forced the Government to intervene and issue an official statement in this regard.

Some fake news of attacks on bank cybersecurity is spreading, including comments attributed to Mr. Abid Kamar, the chief spokesman. According to this fake news, the attack affected 9 banks, money was seized, and data was stolen. SBP rejects this news. No bank, except the NBP, was subjected to a cyber attack. In addition, no financial losses or data breaches have been observed so far. SBP is closely monitoring the situation and will share any latest information or information about the incident through its official channels, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a statement.

It is reported that the incident is not being investigated as an attack by a ransomware program, but as an attempt at sabotage.

Security researcher Rafai Balok posted a screenshot on Twitter of allegedly one of the attacked systems of the National Bank of Pakistan. Judging by the screenshot, the Windows computer could not boot due to an error in the boot configuration file. Recording specialists were able to confirm the authenticity of screenshots published by Balock.^[1]

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