Security News > 2023 > November > China's top bank ICBC hit by ransomware, derailing global trades

China's largest bank, ICBC, was hit by ransomware that resulted in disruption of financial services systems on Thursday Beijing time, according to a notice on its website.

"Immediately upon discovering the incident, ICBC FS disconnected and isolated impacted systems to contain the incident," said the bank's financial services division, which added that it was both investigating and progressing recovery efforts.

The US Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association reportedly told its members that the incident could prevent the settling of trades on behalf of other market players.

Malware research group vx-underground revealed it was aware of equity traders that were unable to place or clear trades though ICBC. Some had received an emergency notice stating that ICBC was unable to connect to the Depository Trust and Clearing - an issue that was impacting all of ICBC's clearing customers - and that due to the attack orders were not being accepted.

"We successfully cleared US Treasury trades executed Wednesday and Repo financing trades done on Thursday," stated ICBC FS in the notice on its website Friday.

The Register understands the hack is suspected to come from ransomware gang LockBit.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/icbc_ransomware/