IMF Mum on Details of Network Cyberattack

SOURCE: SUDEEP REDDY, SIOBHAN GORMAN and EVAN PEREZ, WALL STREET JOURNAL

The International Monetary Fund wouldn’t say Sunday if any confidential information had been compromised in a recent cyber attack that infiltrated its computer network, the latest in a series of high-profile hacking incidents against major corporations and institutions.
“We had an incident,” said IMF spokesman David Hawley. “We’re investigating it and the fund is completely functional.”
IMF staff received an email last week asking them to contact technicians “if they saw anything suspicious,” Mr. Hawley said. The notification said the IMF found that a desktop computer on the network had been compromised and used to access internal systems and files.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it’s looking into the incident, which was reported Saturday by the New York Times.
The latest infiltration was sophisticated in that it involved significant reconnaissance prior to the attack, and code written specifically to penetrate the IMF, said Tom Kellermann, a former cybersecurity specialist at the World Bank who has been tracking the incident. “This isn’t malware you’ve seen before,” he said. The concern, he said, is that hackers designed their attack to gain market-moving insider information.
The attackers appeared to have broad access to IMF systems, which would give them visibility into IMF plans, particularly as it relates to bailing out the economies of countries on shaky financial footing, Mr. Kellermann said.

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