Ransomware attack on unit of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China disrupts US Treasury market trades
- The incident affected some financial services, though the impact seemed to be limited
- While ransomware attacks have been soaring across a range of sectors in recent years, they have rarely disrupted a major financial market
A ransomware attack on a unit of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) disrupted some trades in the US Treasury market on Thursday but market sources said the impact seemed to be limited.
ICBC Financial Services, the US unit of China’s largest commercial lender by assets, said in a statement a ransomware attack resulted in disruption to certain systems and it was conducting an investigation and “progressing its recovery efforts”.
The bank said it had successfully cleared US Treasury trades executed on Wednesday and repurchase agreements (repo) financing trades done on Thursday.
“In general, the event had a limited impact on the market,” said Scott Skrym, executive vice-president for fixed income and repo at broker-dealer Curvature Securities.
In ransomware attacks, hackers encrypt an organisation’s systems and demand ransom payments in exchange for unlocking them.
Several ransomware experts and analysts said an aggressive cybercrime gang named LockBit was believed to be behind the hack, although the gang’s dark web platform where it typically posts names of its victims did not mention ICBC as a victim as of Thursday evening.
