A Vietnamese bank recently thwarted what could have been a US$1.1 million cyber crime.

According to Reuters, Tien Phong Bank (TPBank) claims it managed to stop an attempted theft involving fraudulent SWIFT messages late last year.  During the fourth quarter of 2015, employees detected suspicious requests to transfer over US$1.1 million. TPBank was able to stop the transactions by immediately contacting the parties involved to clarify the situation.

As a result, the fraudulent messages "did not cause any losses. It had no impact on the SWIFT system in particular and the transaction system between the bank and customers in general," according to a statement released by the bank.

While it's not entirely clear how hackers were able to break into the SWIFT messaging system, which plays a crucial role in global financial transactions, TPBank believes a third-party vendor's infrastructure was compromised by malware, resulting in the fraudulent messages. The bank says it has since discontinued its contract with the third-party business and is now using a network with stronger security and direct access to the SWIFT system.

The scheme was similar to a February incident in which hackers walked away with US$81 million from Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve. Though the criminals fell short of their intended US$1 billion goal in the February heist, much of the stolen money remains missing. 

For its part, SWIFT declined to comment but did say an unnamed bank had experienced complications similar to that of Bangladesh Bank. Following the incident, SWIFT has also issued a warning to its customers regarding malware schemes.

[Photo via The Guardian]