Banks Boost Security Of SWIFT Networks

Banks Tighten SWIFT Security

Global banks using SWIFT networks, the global interbank messaging system used to move trillions of dollars each day, are stepping up their security systems amid the rising threat of cyberattacks.

The tightening of security comes in the wake of both a massive Southeast Asian breach (Bangladesh’s central bank for $81 million) that started out the year and the run of smaller attempts on the system that have been sprouting up like weeds ever since.

Just this week, SWIFT revealed that customers had three new cyberbreaches take place over the summer and cautioned that attacks against banks in the network are ongoing.

Reuters reported on Thursday (Sept. 29) that bankers in attendance at SWIFT’s annual Sibos conference in Geneva confirmed plans to utilize new security tools and review procedures. It’s believed that some banks will also seek out alternative technologies for moving money, such as blockchain-based systems.

The vulnerabilities of the SWIFT system — as well as the growing number of cybercrime incidents and hacking threats — have left the industry shaken.

“The attacks will continue and get more sophisticated,” SWIFT Chief Executive Gottfried Leibbrandt stated during the conference. “I believe that, in cyber, only the paranoid survive.”

Earlier this month, the international payments network announced changes that will help its client-members spot unauthorized payments as quickly as possible.

SWIFT said in a statement on Sept. 20 that, starting in December, it will begin sending “Daily Validation Reports” to clients. Those reports will list messages sent from the client’s SWIFT terminal, thus allowing a bank to spot any payment instructions that it had not intended to send. The reports will also come with a risk report that is intended to spot deviations from the banks’ normal pattern of money transfers.

The Belgium-based organization, a cooperative controlled by the biggest global banks, has been accused of being slow to react to growing security risks in recent years. Recent months, however, have seen the organization attempt to step up the level of its game — with a new “Customer Security Program” and a focus on helping clients, particularly smaller banks, to avoid becoming the victims of hacking.