5 ms·

$10 router blamed in Bangladesh bank hack

43 points by andygambles 10y ago

justinsaccount 10y ago
Funny, the reuters article said "Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers by cheap switches, no firewall" "Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said." Which is completely different from what the BBC is reporting.
- dangrossman 10y ago
  This BBC report is a paraphrasing of the Reuters report, which it cites. Where are you seeing a difference?
  - justinsaccount 10y ago
    Reuters: "Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers by cheap switches, no firewall" BBC: "$10 router blamed in Bangladesh bank hack" Reuters: "Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches" BBC: "The bank had no firewall and used second-hand routers that cost $10 to connect to global financial networks." They appear to have arbitrarily changed the word "switch" to "router" and put more emphasis on the cheap networking hardware than on the lack of firewall.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
stuff4ben 10y ago
Cisco is gonna love that!
partycoder 10y ago
In my country, a study was done to construct a new runway in the airport. The study specified certain thickness for the runway. The construction contractors built it thinner, to save costs, and the result is that it cracked. Because of this, this is how much money they ended spending: - Initial runway (0.5x cost) - Removing runway to make room for the new one (0.5x cost) - Constructing new runway (1.0x cost) We have a proverb there... "the lazy works twice". This pretty much applies.
donpdonp 10y ago
In other news, "Family dog blamed in home robbery hack."
dang 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548784
praveenster 10y ago
"The hackers aimed to steal $1bn but made mistakes that led to the theft being spotted and stopped." "A spelling mistake in one of the transfer orders alerted bank staff and meant the hackers only managed to steal $81m." Boy, hackers need to be good at spelling too!
tracker1 10y ago
I'm not sure how much the price is relevant... I've been using ASUS routers with tomato firmware, which are pretty competitively priced (not quite $10, but not produced less than 300mi away either). I'm only bringing this up, because pricing for common hardware in other parts of the world are different, and don't necessarily reflect the quality of materials or software used.

43 points by andygambles 10y ago

Funny, the reuters article said "Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers by cheap switches, no firewall" "Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said." Which is completely different from what the BBC is reporting.

dangrossman 10y ago
This BBC report is a paraphrasing of the Reuters report, which it cites. Where are you seeing a difference?
- justinsaccount 10y ago
  Reuters: "Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers by cheap switches, no firewall" BBC: "$10 router blamed in Bangladesh bank hack" Reuters: "Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches" BBC: "The bank had no firewall and used second-hand routers that cost $10 to connect to global financial networks." They appear to have arbitrarily changed the word "switch" to "router" and put more emphasis on the cheap networking hardware than on the lack of firewall.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

stuff4ben 10y ago

Cisco is gonna love that!

partycoder 10y ago

In my country, a study was done to construct a new runway in the airport. The study specified certain thickness for the runway. The construction contractors built it thinner, to save costs, and the result is that it cracked. Because of this, this is how much money they ended spending: - Initial runway (0.5x cost) - Removing runway to make room for the new one (0.5x cost) - Constructing new runway (1.0x cost) We have a proverb there... "the lazy works twice". This pretty much applies.

donpdonp 10y ago

In other news, "Family dog blamed in home robbery hack."

dang 10y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548784

praveenster 10y ago

"The hackers aimed to steal $1bn but made mistakes that led to the theft being spotted and stopped." "A spelling mistake in one of the transfer orders alerted bank staff and meant the hackers only managed to steal $81m." Boy, hackers need to be good at spelling too!

tracker1 10y ago

I'm not sure how much the price is relevant... I've been using ASUS routers with tomato firmware, which are pretty competitively priced (not quite $10, but not produced less than 300mi away either). I'm only bringing this up, because pricing for common hardware in other parts of the world are different, and don't necessarily reflect the quality of materials or software used.