ICBC forced to trade with USB drive due to ransomware attack

The U.S. wing of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) was forced to execute trades through a USB drive on Thursday due to a cyberattack on Wednesday.

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Fast Facts

• ICBC confirmed the attack on Thursday and said that it isolated the affected systems and that the systems at the bank’s head office and other units were not affected.
• ICBC, the world’s third-largest bank by market capitalization, had to dispatch a courier with a USB drive to deliver transaction details to its partners. 

• The attack immediately disconnected ICBC’s market makers, brokerages and partner banks, rendering it unable to execute U.S. treasury trades.

• Two unnamed sources told the Financial Times that the main suspect behind the attack is Lockbit, a criminal gang with ties to Russia, which was also linked to cyberattacks on Boeing Co., ION Trading UK and the UK’s Royal Mail. The sources reportedly said that the attack was carried out using LockBit 3.0 software, which the group often rents out to affiliates.

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