The US unit of China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), called ICBC Financial Services, has suffered a ransomware virus attack, triggering disruptions in transactions involving US Treasuries, Reuters reports.
ICBC, which is China’s largest commercial lender by assets, is currently investigating the attack and working to recover. This incident is just one of many ransomware attacks that have affected various organisations throughout the year.
Cybercrime group Lockbit may be behind the attack on ICBC, cybersecurity experts and analysts say. Interestingly, as of Friday morning, ICBC was not mentioned on the group’s dark website, which usually lists its victims. Allan Liska, an extortion expert at Recorded Future, explained to Reuters that extortion gangs may not disclose information about their victims during ransom negotiations.
Despite the attack, ICBC was able to clear Wednesday’s treasury trades and Thursday’s repurchase agreement financing trades. Scott Scrim, executive vice president of fixed income and repo at broker-dealer Curvature Securities, said the incident failed to have a significant impact on the market. However, some market participants noted that trades processed through ICBC were not settled due to the attack, affecting market liquidity.
Lockbit has attacked 1,700 US organisations since its inception in 2020, according to the US cybersecurity and infrastructure protection agency (CISA). The group has previously attacked companies such as Boeing, ION Trading UK and the UK’s Royal Mail. In a recent incident, Lockbit threatened Boeing to release sensitive data it claimed to have obtained through hacking.
The US Treasury Department is aware of the cybersecurity issue and liaises regularly with key players in the financial sector and federal regulators. According to LSEG, the Treasury market was operating normally on Thursday. The attack on ICBC highlights the vulnerability of large organisations’ systems to cybercriminals and can raise questions about market participants’ cybersecurity measures, potentially leading to regulatory scrutiny.
