Saturday, Apr 15, 2017
Dubai
A Dubai-based provider of SWIFT services on Saturday denied that it had been hacked. The statement from EastNets comes one day after documents were released on online that suggesting the National Security Agency (NSA) had penetrated the SWIFT banking network and monitored a number of Middle East banks.
“The reports of an alleged hacker-compromised EastNets Service Bureau (ENSB) network is totally false and unfounded. The EastNets Network internal Security Unit has ran a complete check of its servers and found no hacker compromise or any vulnerabilities,” it said.
SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications and provides a messaging network for financial institutions to “quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information such as money transfer instructions.”
In 2013, documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden said the NSA had been able to monitor SWIFT messages. The agency monitored the system to spot payments intended to finance crimes, according to the documents released by Snowden.
The files released on Friday by a hacker Shadow Brokers also showed the NSA had found and exploited numerous vulnerabilities in a range of Microsoft Windows products widely used on computers around the world, according to computer security analysts.
“While we cannot ascertain the information that has been published, we can confirm that no EastNets customer data has been compromised in anyway. EastNets continues to guarantee the complete safety and security of its customers data with the highest levels of protection from its SWIFT certified Service bureau” Hazem Mulhim, CEO and founder EastNets. The statements also said that photos shown on twitter, claiming compromised information, are outdated and obsolete.
Staff Report
Gulf News 2017. All rights reserved.
