North Korea could be behind international bank heists, security experts say

Thieves steal more than £55m after 'world's most secure' payment transfer system is breached for the first time

If the country is behind the theft it will be the first time a government has attacked foreign banks for financial reasons (Getty Images)

North Korea could be behind spate of cyber attacks on Asian banks, according to digital security analysts.

Private firm Symantec said it had evidence that thieves had either stolen money or attempted to do so from banks in the Philippines, Vietnam and Bangladesh by using the same piece of code that was involved in the Sony Pictures hack in December 2014, the New York Times reported.

The only other time the code has been used was in a series of attacks on banks and media companies in South Korea in 2013 which Washington and Seoul blamed on North Korea – though they did not provide independent verification at the time.

Symantec said the hackers had managed to steal more than $81m (£55.4m) from the central bank of Bangladesh in February this year and failed to steal $1m (£680,000) from the Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam in December last year.

The attacks have raised alarm bells in the global banking community because it is the first time that thieves have managed to breach Swift, a payment transfer system that is believed to be the most secure in the world.

The system, run by a Brussels-based banking consortium, is currently used by 11,000 banks and companies to move money around the world.

Swift has publicly warned that the attacks were part of a co-ordinated campaign against banks but did not explicitly blame North Korea.

It also said that connection points to its network had been breached, rather than the system itself.

There have been multiple examples of countries using malware and cyber attacks to hurt their international rivals.

Security researchers have found evidence linking the US and Israel to attacks on Iranian centrifuges and the Chinese military to attacks on foreign intelligence services, but this is the first time a government is believed to have attacked foreign banks purely for financial benefit.

Security researcher Eric Chien told the New York Times: “If you believe North Korea was behind those attacks [on Sony], then the bank attacks were also the work of North Korea.

“We’ve never seen an attack where a nation-state has gone in and stolen money. This is a first.”