Thefts not our fault: Atiur Rahman

The former governor of the Bangladeshi central bank blames its recent $81 million digital heist on a banking transaction network and the New York Fed.

Atiur Rahman told the New York Times that the robbery was the result of ‘systemic problems,’ reports the hill.

‘Bangladesh should not be blamed for something going wrong in the chain,’ he said.

Rahman resigned from the bank in the wake of the robbery.

Thieves stole credentials to log into the SWIFT bank transactions network and ordered the New York Fed to transfer $81 million of the Bangladesh Bank’s funds to casinos in the Philippines. Rahman said he disagreed with experts that blamed the heist on poor security practices at his bank, which allegedly operated without a firewall.

‘I made cybersecurity the top of the agenda,’ he said, ‘I smelt a year back that this could be a problem. It was my bad luck that this happened now.’

Rahman said he had requested greater cybersecurity at the bank. Due to bureaucracy, he said, those requests went unanswered until after the February heist.

Rahman acknowledged that it was possible that the someone at the bank may have had a password stolen, contributing to the robbery. But he said the Fed and SWIFT should have done more to protect the bank and stressed that there was no wrongdoing from his office.

‘As a governor, I’m not supposed to look at each and every small thing,’ he said.

‘Maybe someone’s password was compromised,’ he said. ‘It was a departmental failure and not the fault of the governor. It was a high dosage attack, like a 15 on the Richter scale attack. Other parties could have helped or warned Bangladesh.’