2024 Commercial Bank of Ethiopia glitch incident
On 15 March 2024, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) was reported to compromising for night between 12 a.m. and 3 a.m. Customers withdrew large amount of cash (more than 40 million dollar) that their account haven't and accessing ATM service. CBE released five notes less than within 24 hours, describing the bank failure by systemic problem in its branch level.[1] Abe Sano, the president of CBE told that much of money withdrew by students.[2] News of the glitches spread across university via messaging app and phone calls. According to BBC, students who withdrew money in western Ethiopia queued to access ATM machine after which police officers approach to campus for stoppage. Dilla University student said a number of his peers retrieved money from CBE between midnight and 02:00 local time.[3]
CBE stated that the cyber attack is motivated by economic and political reason, believing the transaction of large amount of money from ATM machines is general glitch problem. About 490,000 transactions (both legal and illegal) were completed which lasted around midnight to dawn.[4]
On 16 March, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) issued statement on the cyber attack that reads:
"Banks regularly carry out security checks and make updates on their systems to deliver speedy and secure services. The changes that result from these updates and inspection works may cause interruption on banking services." NBE convinced that the interruption of CBE service was largely of maintenance work.[5] Elias Meseret, an AP journalist told that they acknowledged witness who commit the financial breach by saying: "Many people , especially university students have taken money from the commercial bank of Ethiopia ATP or have transferred money online."[1]
References
- ^ a b Account (2024-03-17). "Ethiopia's state bank system compromised for hours ; loss undisclosed". Borkena Ethiopian News. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ "They're in the money! Ethiopian bank glitch pays out millions". euronews. 2024-03-19. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ "Commercial Bank of Ethiopia glitch lets customers withdraw millions". 2024-03-18. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ Standard, Addis (2024-03-19). "CBE reports massive cyber-attack attempts amid internal "glitch" causing loss of millions of birr". Addis Standard. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ "Central Bank Says Disruption Of CBE Digital Banking Service Occurred Due To System Update, Inspection Works". Fana Broadcasting Corporate. 20 March 2024.