IMF admits cyber attack seeking ‘insider info’

The International Monetary Fund was the target of a sophisticated cyber attack earlier this year, according to senior IMF officials quoted by the New York Times.

The global financial institution, which has been spearheading the response to the euro-zone crisis in recent months, has detailed and market-moving information on the fiscal shape of the world’s economies.

“This was a very major breach,” the Times quoted an IMF official as saying. The attack, which lasted months, began before Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in Manhattan.

An internal memo from the IMF’s Chief Information Officer, Jonathan Palmer, dated 8 June, apparently informed staff that file transfers that were out of the ordinary had been detected. Investigations also revealed that a desktop PC “had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems”, according to Reuters.

A security specialist quoted in the Reuters report was of the opinion that the attack sought to gain, “sensitive, insider-privileged information”. An IMF spokesperson described the attack as sophisticated and serious.

The World Bank, which has its headquarters across the street from the IMF, reportedly cut the computer link between the two entities as a precaution.

IMF staff were apparently told about the attack on Wednesday, but the fund did not make any public announcement. The officials did not say where the attack originated, but the newspaper said it could have been carried out by “spear phishing”, that is where a user is tricked into clicking on a malicious web link or running a program that gives an outsider access to a network.

Earlier this month, Anonymous, the vigilante hackers’ group, declared an online attack against the IMF over the strict conditions imposed by its bailout for Greece. However, this latest attack would have been a departure for “Anonymous” , which usually involves denial of service rather than spear phishing. – AFP